


Blade in the Trees

by Locke (ForgottenLocke)



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:13:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 39,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24532096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForgottenLocke/pseuds/Locke
Summary: The tale of Haruno Sakura as she learns and grows in her own path as a ninja.Sakura may have always been a bit of a paper-ninja in the Academy, but at home, when her mother was away, her papa trained her in the ways of his previous kenshi school.  With a different mentality and skill-set going into, and out of, the Academy, things change for both the pinkette and those around her.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 52





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has been rattling around in various states of revision for… longer than I care to admit. It started as an homage to the (unfortunately) unfinished work Suiren by Eimii. Since then it has changed and been revised many times. In its current iteration, it’s some kind of Alt U with vague aspects of a few other anime/manga that I had liked. Brownie points to those who can eventually identify the two that are pulled from directly for Sakura’s eventual abilities.  
> Also… my dudes… the main plot is not romance. These kids are barely tweens when they graduate. Don’t expect an epic romance or whatever, even though it’s tagged for female/female.
> 
> As another side-note: I am no good at summaries. Hope you like the fic anyway.

Sakura sat as patiently as she could, trying not to fidget or shift uncomfortably. It was already difficult enough to find a comfortable position in the classroom chairs, wearing this ridiculous thing her mother had picked for her, but up on the roof it was nearly impossible. She wanted to tug at the hem of the dress, even though she’d made sure to wear athletic shorts beneath it, or to reach back and fiddle with her hair. Honestly, this entire scenario had been outside of her suspicions for the day, and she was unprepared. She should have brought something to change into - she’d had the entire three hours this man was late to have done so.

“Let’s see… first let’s have you introduce yourselves.” The words were eventually sighed at them, and she hid the tiniest second of panic as she wondered if that’s what he’d been waiting for. Shouldn’t he have their files though? She was certain the academy had kept files on all of the graduates. “Like… your likes, dislikes, future dream, hobbies…. Things like that….”

His voice trailed off, and she blinked blankly in reaction. Likes and dislikes? A dream? That just seemed so civilian. Shouldn’t he be asking about their aspirations as ninja? “Hey hey, before that, please tell us about yourself!” Uzumaki complained, and she smirked a little bit at it being a legitimately intelligent demand. “We’ve never even seen ya before, dattebayo!”

“Me?” The man pointed dumbly to himself, and Sakura’s eyebrow quirked up as she shifted her knees to the other side in an effort not to pull at the dress again. “My name is Hatake Kakashi. My likes and dislikes… I don’t feel like telling you guys. I’ve never really thought about my future dream.” He paused again, rubbing his chin through his mask. “I have… hobbies… Alright, now you guys. We’ll start with the loud one.”

So they had his name. They had his name, which honestly Iruka-sensei had told them even before the man had made them wait three hours in the classroom. Uzumaki was busy expounding the wonders of ramen, but she couldn’t help her slightly incredulous glare at the man. He could have at least told them something relevant to himself and how he intended to teach them or handle their team. Even his specialty or history as a ninja. If they had been designated as a three-man cell instead of general corps, their jounin should at least show some interest in them. “And my future dream… is to surpass the Hokage! I’m going to make the entire village recognize my existence, dattebayo!”

Sakura turned at that, the loud declaration startling her away from staring at the jounin. Hokage? Her gaze travelled over the bright orange outfit, the unkempt hair, the loud behavior. Quirky perhaps? If he survived his genin years, and had some measure of talent, it was possible. She was under the impression that only the craziest, and most powerful… but definitely craziest… made it to that seat of power. The way that he smiled forcefully, as if challenging anyone to refute him, made her believe it a little more though. “Okay. Next, Pinky.”

It took a moment for her to realize that the jounin meant her, and she slowly turned to look at the man from where blue eyes had turned to her excitedly. The blond boy was trying to whisper subtle encouragement at her, which sounded more like a rambling grunt in his efforts to keep it at a whisper. “I am Haruno Sakura,” she offered finally, blanking on what else to say. Most of the relevant information about her abilities were probably in her file, and he already knew she wanted to be a ninja from the fact that she was assigned to this team. “I like swords.”

It was all that she could think of as being relevant really. They didn’t train with them in the academy, so it wouldn’t be in her file. “Ne, ne, Sakura-chan! You’re supposed to tell him your dream too!” Naruto finally said at his normal, boisterous volume. Kakashi still hadn’t looked away from her.

Folding her hands in her lap and staring right back at the silver-haired man, she waited. Direct instruction had been to introduce themselves, and then the example of topics was suggested, not ordered. Kakashi-san’s example had given little beyond his name as well… so technically she had followed her direction. Another few minutes passed of them staring at each other, with her sitting as primly as she could while staring down a jounin, before he seemed to finally lose interest in her and turned to the last member of the team.

“My name is Uchiha Sasuke. I have a lot of dislikes, and no likes in particular.” He looked up over his folded hands at their jounin, and she could hear the slight grunt of distaste. “As for the rest, I don’t feel like summing it up as just a dream… but I do have an ambition! I have an ambition to restore my clan, and without fail… kill a certain man!”

Sakura glanced back at the Uchiha briefly at that, just a little surprised. He’d always just seemed distantly arrogant and irritable, especially when the girls in class trailed around after him. Ino had always claimed it was just him being deep, and haunted. She’d not given the gushing sentiments any weight before, but maybe the Yamanaka had something there.

Swallowing back any platitudes that wouldn’t help anyway, she turned again to gauge the reaction from their sensei, or lack thereof. Her brows furrowed as she saw he seemed unsurprised and unconcerned with the Uchiha’s motivation. “Good! The three of you are very distinctive and interesting!” It sounded rehearsed, like he was reading from a script, and she scoffed internally. “We’ll have a mission tomorrow. Firstly, we’ll do what we can all together… a survival exercise!”

“What?! A survival exercise!” Uzumaki leaned forward, and she tilted her head just a little as well. “What for? We already did that kinda stuff in the Academy!”

“This isn’t like the kind of training you did in the academy.” Kakashi shrugged, folding his arms. Sakura swallowed hard, clenching her hands together to prevent reacting as loudly and obviously as the blonde next to her. What was he planning? “Well… if I tell you… you’ll be disenchanted.” He continued chuckling lightly, shrugging, and Naruto immediately got loud and excited, asking for clarification. Sakura just stared on grimly, feeling a cold lump in her stomach. “Of the twenty-seven graduates, only nine will be recognized as genin. The remaining eighteen will be sent back to the Academy. In other words, this exercise is an extremely difficult test, with a failure rate of at least 66%! See? You all got disenchanted!”

Sakura’s mind instantly began to whirl, and her eyes lost focus. Next to her the loud one was arguing, but she only barely heard it. She knew that percentage. She  _ knew it _ . 66% of graduates were transferred into the general genin corps of the village, and trained in various stations meant for the service and maintenance of the village itself. Of course it wasn’t this simple.  _ Of course it wasn’t _ ! While the academy could train them in generalities, and gauge their approximate skill level based against the lowest standard, it couldn’t accurately depict their individual abilities and potential - that would require a more attentive test.

When Kakashi disappeared amid Naruto’s loud squawking, she reached out and grabbed a handful of the hideous orange jacket. Sasuke was already slumping away in his usual cloud of brooding angst, but Sakura could at least try to gather some measure of intel or plan with the blonde. “I’m a real ninja, dattebayo!!”

The loud shout made her wince and jerk away, causing Naruto to stumble from where she’d still had a grip on his jacket. “All three of us are.” She agreed quietly, looking skeptically at the boy and waiting for him to actually pay attention to her. The wide-eyed stare was unexpected. “We graduated and are under contract.” The look of confusion didn’t abate, and she let out a sigh, shifting the stupid dress again. “Uzumaki, right? Like I said, I’m Haruno Sakura. Let’s get some dango and try to think this through.” He was still staring at her, wide eyed and open mouthed, so she just huffed at him, reaching forward to grab his jacket again, this time by the shoulder, and carefully march him forward to join her.

“Contract?” He finally asked as she pulled him onto the street, then aimed them in the general direction of her favorite dango and tea stand.

“The Academy isn’t free.” She said in response, and he suddenly shouted in alarm. “When you join, you enter a contract with the village. If you fail or drop out, you owe tuition.” She paused and looked him over skeptically. She could have sworn that he’d failed the graduation exam before, but if he was still around, maybe there were clauses about being able to retry. “When you graduate, you owe 3 years of service to the village, or equivalent missions to pay for the cost of tuition and resources used. It’s all in the Academy contract that we have to sign.”

“Ne? I don’t remember a contact!” He yelled, and she hushed him as she shoved him into a seat, ordering them both dango and tea. The stall-keeper was glaring balefully at the blonde, but at least he hadn’t kicked them out for the shouting and scene.

“I didn’t either until Papa made me read it again this year.” She sighed, then eyed the blonde at her side. “So I don’t know what that whole scene up on the roof was about, but it wasn’t true. That means we’re already in the middle of whatever test he’s giving us.” Blue eyes were staring wide at her again, and she shrugged. “So, that means we have to figure out what the test  _ really _ is.”

“But… I already passed!” He groaned in complaint, and she couldn’t help the slight laugh at his dramatics.

“They didn’t teach us about  _ after _ the Academy when we were in classes… I had to learn that by reading the contract and… talking to someone… so I guess you wouldn’t know.” She thanked the stall keeper politely, setting out the money for their dango and tea before sliding Naruto’s plate to him. “There’s a few different… paths… that we could have taken when we graduated. I thought it was weird that Iruka-sensei had designated all of us to be added to the power-track as three-man-cells.”

“What do ya mean, dattebayo?” Naruto spoke with his mouth full, cheeks puffed up like a greedy squirrel, and her stomach churned at the sight.

“Uh, gross. Don’t talk with food coming out of your mouth when we’re eating together.” She wrinkled her nose and shook her head, looking away. “Anyway, there’s a few different paths that we could have been assigned. We could be in the corps, with the majority of graduates. Their teams and squads change based on who’s available and what the village wants done. Most of the people I’ve talked to were corps. Then there’s apprentices, who are assigned one-on-one with a sensei to learn a specialty. Then there’s what… well what I thought we were.” She turned and risked a glance at him. He had swallowed and was just staring at her. “Three-person-teams. They have an assigned team, and an assigned leader… usually it means they have potential to be a strong ninja. It’s like group specialties.”

“You’re so smart, Sakura-chan.” He was smiling at her brightly. “Of course we’re strong ninja!”

“But what would  _ our _ specialty be?” She sighed and ate a dango ball, thinking as she stared at the back of the stall. “I mean, I don’t know what your abilities and Uchiha-san’s abilities are… but with  _ everyone _ that graduated being assigned as a three-person-team this morning… maybe that’s what the test shows. If we’re good enough for team training, or if we’re corps.”

“Well, I’m super strong, ‘ttebayo. Don’t worry, Sakura-chan! I’ll protect you! We’ll win this test!” his loud exclamation just made her sigh and eat another dango, wishing for that confidence. What was the test supposed to be? “We’ll win the survival training, no problem! Promise of a lifetime!”

Right. The survival training. Maybe that was to show their skills, and if they had the potential for any of the different paths. She should have been paying more attention up on the rooftop. It took little effort to get Naruto to recount the instructions that they had been given, though she did need more than one try to get him to tell her exactly what was said, instead of his own weird interpretation of it. The instruction to bring everything, and not to eat… and classifying it as survival training? Perhaps they would have to find food in the training grounds too. Not likely, other than fish and some edible sprouts or herbs. Sakura just wished she knew what this stupid test was trying to discover.

* * *

Sakura had eaten a large dinner the previous evening in preparation, ignoring the disapproving glare her mother gave at the amount of food she had consumed. She was tempted to eat breakfast despite the suggestion against it, and did grab a granola bar just in case, but for the most part she was concerned with showing up to the training grounds as prepared as possible. Her long hair she pulled back into a braid, and while she didn’t know if the armor would be needed, she wore her long sleeved ninja-mesh shirt under a tank top because they’d been told to bring all of their supplies. Sakura had spent four hours the previous night making sure that all of her kunai and shuriken were sharpened and maintained properly, carefully coiling her few lengths of wire, and cataloguing her meagre collection of exploding tags. It wasn’t much, she’d never had much in the way of ninja supplies, but it would have to do.

With senbon, kunai, and shuriken tucked away and hidden in her clothing and holsters, and her bokuto strapped to her side, she’d have to consider herself prepared. Idly, she wondered if the boys had bothered to sharpen or do maintenance for any of their stash the day before. Ducking through her window, and jogging her way to the training grounds, Sakura quickly ate the granola bar, feeling guilty for defying the suggestion but refusing to give up the energy it would grant her. It had only been a suggestion right? The way Naruto phrased it seemed so… she really should have paid attention to that.

Sakura ended up running the last leg of her trip to the grounds and skidding to a halt in front of the Uchiha. At his feet was an overstuffed bag of supplies, more than she even owned, and while he had that same distinct glower marring his features he also looked half asleep. Glancing at the slowly rising sun, and the equally slowly trudging Uzumaki now joining them, Sakura realized that their sensei was once more nowhere to be seen.

Three hours later, the three of them were still waiting. She’d thought that the previous day was simply the man having chosen to observe and assess them for a while… but this was completely ridiculous. Three  _ hours _ for their sensei to show up,  _ again _ . She’d nearly fallen asleep, Naruto  _ had _ fallen asleep, and she suspected that even the Uchiha had dozed off. Three whole hours later, the silver-haired demon strolled up with a half-assed excuse about a black cat crossing his path.

“Oh well… okay this is set for twelve-o-clock! Today’s assignment is to take these bells away from me by noon. Those who don’t will not get lunch, and will be tied to these posts, and I’ll eat my lunch before your very eyes.” He held out a hand with two silver bells in it, then gestured at three wooden posts stuck into the ground nearby. Sakura blinked, processing. Two bells. Three-man-team. He’d already lied once about their return to the Academy… or so she thought. This was essentially pass or fail program training, or it was disguised as such and was a way to best assess their skills and potential. Nevertheless it was a combat test, phrased as survival training, with at minimum two blatant deceptions so far.

“There are three of us.” The deadpan statement seemed to actually make the crazy jounin happier, if his eye-smile was any indication. Her green eyes scanned his reaction, calculating.

“There are two bells so that at least one person goes to the logs. That person will be disqualified for failing the mission, and will return to the Academy.” He looked disturbingly pleased with that prospect, and she couldn’t stop the feeling of insult it gave her. “It might be one person, at the very least, or it could be all three of you. You can use your shuriken and kunai. You won’t be able to take the bells unless you come at me with the intent to kill me.”

Her mind churned again, and she thought back to the contract, the conversations, her realization the previous afternoon… Naruto was already making a scene, but she considered the factors. He hadn’t once mentioned the potential of being shuffled into a different program, or even those programs being available. He’d deceived them about eating, to use it as a motivator or sick aspect of his game for the day. Team training was specifically known for three-person-cells, under a leader. Three-man-cell… two bells. The assignment was to take the bells... 

“Is this a team test?” She asked, head tilted and still staring at the shiny metal of the bells, ignoring Uzumaki’s protests for the lock that the man held him in. In her peripheral she saw the considering look he gave her.

“What do you think, Pinky-chan?” The dismissively friendly question made her finally look up and meet the one visible eye that was focused on her.

“I think that we are currently being assessed as a three-man-team as assigned during Genin placement, and that the assignment for the team is to retrieve the bells.” She answered bluntly, hand slowly moving to the bokuto at her side. “Permission to begin assignment?”

“Affirmative, Genin Pinky-chan.” He chirped at her, and her cheek twitched. “Start.”

Sakura launched forward, striking at the hand that was trailing from where he’d suddenly released Naruto. It was a single attack, and when she passively saw his dodge moving him further away from the blonde, she darted instead to the treeline. It took her a few moments too long to realize that Uzumaki, the idiot, had  _ not _ followed her. Sakura skidded to a halt, frantically staring around, bokuto already in hand, and tried to catch sight or sound of where the loud menace had gone. Where was Uchiha? She’d thought that she ran in the same direction she’d seen him move.

Turning, she strained her hearing, and thought she caught wind of Uzumaki’s loud voice still back in the direction she’d come from. Cursing internally, she darted back that way. There was no possible way that she was that much faster than either of them. Had the jounin caught them instead, leaving her for later? Had they already failed?

She didn’t catch sight of where Uchiha was as she slowed and crept closer and closer to the clearing they’d started in. Sakura could hear Uzumaki though, shouting at and attacking their jounin directly. Leaping up onto a branch, hoping that the leaves would conceal enough of her, she watched the… ridiculous display… between her blonde teammate and the jounin. The presence of clones was unexpected, especially as they were obviously of a more advanced nature than the pathetic ones that the Academy had taught them, but Uzumaki was just  _ so LOUD _ . And upfront. No strategy, no thought… what kind of ninja just  _ did _ that? The baka was going to fail them from the start.

Growling to herself, Sakura darted around the treeline as quickly as she could, setting up the small number of exploding tags she actually had, ninja wire, and a few traps. It wasn’t her best work, but she was rushed while Uzumaki had him distracted. Maybe they could draw the jounin into it once she knocked some sense into the idiot. Glancing back again, she saw Kakashi casually lecturing the blonde, now tied up, and then a wave of kunai and shuriken rain down on where he had been.

Looking around quickly and clinging to the tree she’d been in when she looked, she knew that it had to have been from Sasuke, wherever he’d been hiding. The weapons had thunked into a kawarimi’d log, and Kakashi had probably gone in the direction their trajectory indicated Sasuke hid. Either that or the jounin was also in hiding. No explosions or traps sounded, so either they’d both avoided her setup deftly, or gone in a different direction. Taking a deep breath, and knowing she would regret it if Kakashi was just sitting in wait, she darted out and aimed directly for Uzumaki. “Baka!” she snapped, thumping him over the head. “I don’t  _ care _ how you made those clones yet, but he’s a jounin for a fucking reason!” She looked nervously around, then glared at the blonde again. He was rubbing his head, and pouting at her like the idiot he was quickly proving to be. “Don’t just attack him outright. We’re meant to be a team!”

“But…” He pouted, and she thumped him again.

“Actually think for once, would you? It’s a  _ team _ exercise.” She growled, then cut his rope and dodged the secondary trap the jounin had set up. Growling lightly to herself, she grabbed the back of his horrible, orange jacket and hauled him toward the tree line. “Just… try to stay with me. Maybe we can figure something out together, or one of us distract him. Don’t trigger any more traps. Why didn’t you have one of the clones grab the bells while he was in that hold?”

They arrived where Kakashi was battling Sasuke in a bare few moments, and were momentarily stunned by the Uchiha’s skill. While he had been top of the class in general, his practical scores and chakra abilities bringing his overall average far past Sakura’s, he’d never had to demonstrate quite that level of proficiency in the Academy. She marvelled for a single moment, completely envious, before attempting to catch Naruto as the idiot jumped into the fight too. With a put-upon sigh, she darted forward, pulling her bokuto, and joined the fray.

Kakashi actually had to haul  _ both _ of them out of the way as Sasuke launched a giant spray of fire at them. She was still cursing as the jounin dove directly into the ground, having tossed them out of his way to do so while the fire was still blasting. Naruto recovered at approximately the same time she did, but she had to dart her wooden sword in front of him so that he didn’t go jump on the Uchiha bastard immediately. He’d just get fried trying, and they needed that bastard’s skill to do this. It was somewhat of a moot point, however, when the fire dissipated and almost immediately the jounin dragged Sasuke directly into the ground, leaving only his head exposed.

She moved directly for him, pulling razor wire with a free hand, determined to try to trap the silver-haired demon for at least long enough to get the bells, and had to stumble around Naruto’s uncoordinated, haphazard attacks. Neither of them took the time to try to rescue Sasuke, they didn’t have the space or seconds to do so, with Kakashi so close.

“Ninja combat skill number 3…” The jounin’s voice was ominous and echoing, but before she could fully understand what he was saying, handling them far easier than he had Sasuke, Sakura was distracted by the fluttering of hundreds of leaves. She didn’t expect Naruto to suddenly disappear. Kakashi and Sasuke were gone too… had he used some sort of transportation jutsu on her, to send her to a different part of the forest?

There was the sound of rustling leaves, and a flash of brown between the trunks of the trees, and Sakura tensed, readying herself and her weapons. Blinking rapidly, she thought she saw a hint of a hitai-ate… a foreign one. Iwa? Swallowing hard, Sakura darted silently into the trees, heading back toward her trapped area. She was sure that she could smell smoke too. Foreign nin in Konoha territory? And not acting openly, so he was probably not supposed to be there. How many? She cursed under her breath, gripping her bokuto a bit more tightly, wishing it were a real sword. They could barely last seconds with their jounin-sensei, how the hell were they supposed to handle foreign nin? She needed to find the others, wherever they’d ended up with Kakashi, and warn them.

By the time she’d reached the area she’d trapped in preparation for Kakashi, there was no hint of the enemy ninja anywhere, and she’d gotten turned around… almost as if she’d headed the wrong way for half of her running. When she appeared, Naruto was already tied up, and Sasuke was just barely wandering forward as the timer went off. She almost cried a loud warning to them, hoping that the other ninja weren’t close enough to hear, when she saw the curious looks sent her way. “Where’d you go, Sakura-chan?!” Naruto wiggled where he was tied, feet flailing in the air. “You just freaked out and ran off!”

Genjutsu. The silver-haired bastard had used a  _ genjutsu  _ on her? “Naruto tried to get the bento I had ready for you without the rest of the group. For cheating, he is already tied to the post.” Sakura glowered at the blonde menace, moving to slump between two of the posts as Sasuke did the same opposite her. “By the way, as far as this exercise goes, there’s no need for you guys to go back to the Academy.”

Sakura scowled at him, half-pouting, as Naruto did a preemptive victory wiggle. If this was supposed to be assessing them for skill and potential, especially as a team, he couldn’t have seen much to be happy with so far. Even if the Uchiha might merit moving into apprenticeship, she was pretty certain that she and Naruto had flailed around enough that they were even a lost cause for the corps. They had barely worked together, and the corps and teams were all about teamwork.

“You… should quit being ninja!” Naruto slumped in shock as Kakashi declared that, and Sakura clenched a hand around the strap of her bokuto. Of course they hadn’t passed. Even when all attacking at once they hadn’t been able to work together. Naruto abruptly began to struggle and flail, shouting at the man about how not being able to take the bells didn’t mean that. “I’m saying you don’t have the qualifications to become ninja, squirts.”

Sasuke actually attacked the man, much as Naruto had before their start, and Sakura nearly jumped up to do something. She didn’t know if she’d have tried to stop him, or to help him, but Kakashi already had the boy in a full body lock, casual as can be.

“I’m  _ saying _ you’re all squirts. Do you kids think that being a ninja is easy? Huh?” he looked suddenly ominous, and Sakura glared back. Of course she didn’t. If it was easy everyone would go to the Academy, everyone would pass. If it was easy, it wouldn’t be so dangerous, or horrifying. She wanted to throw one of her kunai in his damn face, nevermind the consequences or calming techniques her father had taught her. “Why do you think you’re doing this exercise in teams?”

“Because we’re supposed to work as a fucking team!” She snapped, still glaring at him as she stood abruptly. The silver head jerked back slightly in surprise. “You don’t think I fucking know that?! Why the hell else would Naruto-baka and I have jumped in,  _ together _ , while Uchiha was fighting you? I haven’t gotten a damn chance to fucking talk to the idiots about it!”

Sasuke was actually staring at her, open mouthed, probably Naruto too but she wasn’t looking in his direction. “Awfully loud-mouthed for a squirt,” Kakashi finally commented, and she audibly growled at him. “If you figured it out, why did Naruto get in your way? Why didn’t he go after you when you were put under the genjutsu?” Kakashi shook his head. “You couldn’t even work out a plan to separate Sasuke to attempt to speak to him… you just attacked without thought or reason. It will get you captured, and killed. You  _ might _ have been able to take the bells if you’d come at me together, as a team.”

“But… but… there are only two bells!” Naruto whined, and Sakura huffed impatiently. “Why would we all work together the same if one of us still has to go back? Or to whatever a core is?! Dattebayo!”

“Of course. This is a test set up purposefully place you against each other. It’s under such conditions where one’s own interests aren’t the issue.” Kakashi seemed to look at her curiously there, before turning to look again at Naruto and then Sasuke. He conveniently glossed over Naruto’s mention of the other genin paths. “The intention was to select those who could prioritize teamwork. Despite this you fools…. Naruto! All you do is run solo, even when Sakura was trying to help you, even when she was  _ right there _ . Sasuke, you labelled them as hindrances and acted on your own. Sakura… when you helped Naruto, and led him to join us… you didn’t explain anything, you didn’t even try. Then when you found us you  _ still _ said nothing. Missions are carried out in squads! There is no mistaking that ninjas need unsurpassed individual skills, but  _ teamwork _ is more important than that. Individual actions that disrupt teamwork throw the team into crisis and lead to death. For example… Sakura!” The man held a kunai suddenly to Sasuke’s throat, “Kill Naruto or Sasuke dies!” She simply stared at him, refusing to react despite Naruto’s sudden gasp next to her. “That’s what can happen.”

She glared as Kakashi continued lecturing them. What was she supposed to do then? Beat sense into the boys until they listened? Somehow run from Kakashi-sensei, dragging them with her, as she told them what was happening? Yes, she should have told Naruto, but there was no guarantee that either would listen to her. Kakashi’s phrasing had been clear enough to her, despite the bad conditions of the test… their assignment had been the bells, and the boys had chosen to work solo. Her stomach twisted. Was this failure big enough that they really would be dropped from the ranks? She had worked hard to pass, so that they wouldn’t owe the tuition… so that she could become a ninja.

Kakashi showed them the memorial stone, and she felt a surge of guilt even as Naruto crowed about being on that stone because he was a hero and great ninja. Reaching out, she whacked him across his rope-bound middle to get him to shut up.

“Hey!”

“That’s a memorial stone, fucking baka.” She growled, and Naruto just pouted at her, not really accustomed to her language or behavior. No one in the academy had heard her talk like that, except Ino when she was upset. Her father had worked with her to attempt to control her surprising temper… but she felt far too out of sorts by the potential that they really might be dismissed to try any of the calming techniques. “Killed in action. They’re heroes who were killed performing a mission. Show some respect.” She closed her eyes tightly, looking down and shaking her head. It was an honor to be immortalized like that, and they deserved as much respect as could be given, but she was determined to fight long and hard before ever even being considered for that stone monument… if they ever managed to pass.

“I’ll give you one more chance.” Kakashi’s words shocked them all, and she looked up in surprise. “One of you figured it out, a little. You might be able to do it. However, after noon it’ll be a harsher battle to take the bell. If you want to take on the challenge you can eat lunch. However, don’t let Naruto have any. It’s a punishment for breaking the rules and trying to eat on your own. If someone lets him eat, that person will be disqualified on the spot.” With a final one-eyed glare at all of them, Kakashi disappeared.

“Naruto.” Sasuke’s voice startled her, and she turned as she stood. The dark haired boy was holding out some food to the blonde, and Sakura’s lips quirked up just slightly in a smile. Maybe there was some hope for this team. “Here.”

“But… but sensei said…” Naruto grumped, hesitantly, and Sakura rolled her eyes.

“It’s okay. There’s no sign of him now.” Sasuke stood slightly, ready to help Naruto eat despite the obvious signs of not wanting to do so. “The three of us are going to go take the bells together.”

“Eat, Sasuke-san.” Sakura bent to pick up her bento, so far untouched. “Keep watch.” The Uchiha looked at her skeptically, shoving his chopsticks and the food into Naruto’s mouth in challenge. “No, seriously. Of the three of us, I’ve used the least chakra this morning. He did all of those clones, and you spent energy and chakra in your fight. I haven’t used any, really. You need that more.” She gestured to the top of the post. “Keep an eye out and finish your food quickly, I’ll shove this in Uzumaki’s mouth.”

“No. You’ll be disqualified, Sakura-chan!” Naruto whined, and she used the opportunity to shove more food into his mouth, much as Sasuke had done. “But you were the one that figured it out. I just wanted to share these with you anyway! Like yesterday, ‘ttebayo!”

Before she could force more of the stale bento food into his mouth, an explosion of dust and smoke rocked the area in front of them, where Kakashi had been before. She flinched away, the bento smacking Naruto in the face in the process, and Sasuke jumped up, ready for a fight. Had it really  _ not  _ been a genjutsu before? Were they under attack? Sakura reached for her bokuto.

Kakashi rocketed out of the dirt cloud, and she scowled at him, still ready to draw her weapon, heart pounding. “You three!” The loud, angry shout made her cringe. They’d failed. She was going to be stuck doing mindless clerical work for the assignment desk, or cleaning the Academy, or worse yet kicked out of the ranks entirely, all because they were finally working together! It may have only been a second, but the three of them had actually looked out for each other in that brief offer of lunch. Damn the silver-haired demon for staying close enough to watch. “You three defied the rules… you know what that means.”

“But… but… these guys… they…” Naruto tried. “But you said…”

“We’re a three-man squad, right?” Sasuke asked suspiciously, still positioning himself as if for a fight. She’d need to cut those ropes to release Naruto quickly, if Kakashi let them try again, despite this. Then again, maybe she should leave him there until they’d worked out a strategy.

“That’s right!” Naruto screamed, flailing around again. “We’re one! We’re a squad! They were just…”

“The three of you are one, eh?” Kakashi began to loom closer, and impulsively Sakura flung a kunai to cut open the ropes, preparing to dodge out of the way of whatever the jounin would throw at her. Was this monster of a sensei going to actually attack them for failing? His eye traced her hand’s movement, almost curious, before his expression, muffled by the mask and lowered hitai-ate but still visible, morphed into a cheerful almost-smile. “You pass!”

“What?” Her dull, deadpan tone was echoed in the boys’ stunned expressions, Naruto on his knees and staring.

“You pass. You’re the first.” Kakashi leaned back, settling again into his relaxed, lazy posture. “Up until now, it was always just dunces who would meekly listen to what I said. A Ninja must see through deception… for we are the masters of deception.” He shrugged, trying to look serious again but still just coming off as lazy. “Those who break the rules and codes are branded as garbage… but… those who don’t cherish their friends are garbage worse than that.”

“He’s… kinda cool…” Naruto blubbered, and Sakura sighed in relief. It wasn’t so much that she wanted to be on a team with these idiots… but she hated to fail. At least they’d gotten it.

“That’s it for this exercise. Everyone passes.” He actually flung his arms out into some sort of cool-guy pose. “Group Seven starts their training tomorrow!”

Naruto began dancing around, cheering. “I did it! I’m a Ninja! Ninja!” Sakura just fell back, kicking up dust as she stared up at the sky. That was… exhausting… yet strangely satisfying. A one in three chance of passing… and they’d done it. Did everyone have to demonstrate teamwork in a situation that pitted them against each other, or was that a quirk of their crazy-demon jounin? Was teamwork the defining quality for three-person-cells… or just genin in general?

Sakura stared at the idiot boys she was paired with, blinking blankly. They’d done it, though, either way. They’d passed! Because they’d shared freaking lunch! She nearly passed out with relief. His almost compliment as he wandered away, about her figuring it out on her own, had felt amazing too, no matter it being a bit backhanded. Her heart felt like it was going to break out of her chest. They’d actually passed!

“Want to do a… team… lunch?” she was still stunned, and only managed it once Kakashi had disappeared. Sasuke snorted and walked away without comment, but Naruto was already cheering behind her. Well, one of them would do for now, and the previous day hadn’t been too bad, so long as she didn’t have to watch him shove too much food in his mouth.

Despite the fact that she had needed to essentially drag the blonde to an afternoon snack the day before, Naruto seemed inordinately eager for lunch together. The excited march to some ramen stand was filled with shouts and bouncing encouragement, and she felt her cheeks flush with faint embarrassment with the amount of glares his behavior attracted. He really was just… so loud. The boisterous greeting with the ramen stall, and introducing her as his teammate, made her finally smile though. They’d passed. They’d  _ really _ passed. This was more than just making it to genin, they were actually part of a three-genin-team - that had to be better than the general corps.

“Congratulations Naruto. Another celebratory bowl, just like with Umino-kun?” The friendly man was smiling widely at Naruto, obviously warm and welcoming.

“That was the Academy graduation. We passed to be on a  _ team _ , dattebayo!” Naruto cheered, and she chuckled lightly, pulling out a notepad to scribble down what she remembered of that morning. “Right, Sakura-chan? He was gonna send us back!”

“Eh, not really. I don’t think.” She waved a hand passively, then continued taking notes. “Tonkotsu, please.” Peaking over at where Naruto was smiling at her broadly, still looking shocked that she was around, she shrugged. “I told you yesterday. Our contract with the Academy means that we’re in service to the village for a number or years or missions. I’m pretty sure that, unless we’d made a big mistake today, we would have just been put into the general Genin Corps, instead of getting special training from a jounin. I think.” She huffed, and chewed on her pen a bit. His mouth was dropped open though, as if he’d completely forgotten that conversation. “I guess we should try to get to know each other, now that we’re assigned to the same team for a while. What do you like  _ other _ than ramen?”

Sakura was then treated to a prolonged babble about Naruto’s various likes and dislikes. At first it seemed to center around food, but when she didn’t discourage him or appear to lose interest, he began rambling about Iruka-sensei, pranks, and a few other random subjects. It all lasted through three bowls of ramen for him, and one of her own, before they finally bade Teuchi-san goodbye. Sakura trailed next to him as he excitedly told her all about his favorite place in the village to watch the stars, an odd sentiment considering his boisterous nature, and only realized as they got halfway back toward the training grounds that the glaring from their trip to lunch had not abated, despite Naruto’s much less disruptive behavior. He got quieter and quieter as they went further, though the forceful smile didn’t leave his face, and eventually she realized that he was reacting to the stares of the civilians around them. Without the excitement of the ramen stand, he apparently felt it more intimately.

“Well, I like swords.” She repeated her statement from the day before when the silence became a little awkward. He looked at her in surprise. “And studying too. I don’t have a fancy dream like becoming Hokage, but I want to be strong.” Naruto’s mouth was parted in obvious surprise. “When I was very little, and before I was born… my Papa was a Kenshi. He was very good. I want to be strong, and to be a good shinobi… but I want my sword to make him proud.”

“Huh.” The surprised grunt made her blush a little, and she looked purposefully away from his gaze. The glower she offered one of the civilians passing by with too judging of a look was more of an excuse to not meet the blond boy’s gaze than anything. “What’s a kemchi?”

“Kenshi.” She corrected quickly, turning to look at him in surprise and ignoring the people that were slowly thinning around them as they got to the training grounds area. “Do you know what… um… you know how there’s swordsmen out there? There’s different strengths, just like in a ninja village. There’s bandits, like civilians and stuff, that use swords - brute swords for hire. Then, there’s swordsmen who are trained at schools, similar to our Academy. Those are Kenshi. They can use chakra internally… but they can’t use it outside of their bodies, like ninja and samurai can.”

“You’re really smart, Sakura-chan!” He laughed, rubbing the back of his head and smiling too widely. “And your tou-san was one of them?”

“Yes. He was very skilled.” She nodded, and then bent to begin helping him pick up the scattered equipment they’d left behind. “He got hurt when I was little, though, so he had to retire.” Naruto made an awkward noise, obviously unsure of how to respond to that statement, and she just shrugged at him with a soft smile. “How did you learn those clones you used? They’re not the regular Bunshin from the Academy.”

Naruto laughed even more awkwardly, and then began to babble about his mini adventure with, of all things, the  _ Forbidden Scroll _ . She was a little grateful that there weren’t other nin or civilians around to hear him talk so freely about stealing it from the Hokage and learning a forbidden technique. It certainly sounded well beyond her ability to mimic, so that crossed out any hope of getting him to teach it to her, but the burning irritation and then anger at the former sensei that had tricked him into it… Sakura didn’t know what she’d have done in Naruto’s place, but the thought of liberal use of her bokuto on the man was tempting. She was surprised that Naruto had gotten away with the adventure, and his sudden promotion to genin from it, so easily. Perhaps him calling their village leader  _ Hokage-jiji _ wasn’t just his cheeky attitude. The story, paused frequently for Naruto to gesture wildly or act out parts of it, took a good bit of time, and Sakura realized at the end of it that they’d collected more equipment than she thought she remembered either of them bringing.

“First,” she held up a finger, startling him as they surveyed the pile of equipment in the field, “I’m not encouraging you to get arrested for stealing from the village, but you gotta be pretty good if you managed to take that kind of thing without people realizing until after.” His face turned bright red at both the praise and the admonishment. “Secondly, this is way more than we brought. You think the Uchiha forgot his stuff?”

“Dattebayo, everyone does!” Naruto laughed loudly, and poked at the pile of kunai and shuriken with his toes. “I always go lookin’ around in the training grounds or trees or somethin’ whenever I need more kunai an’ stuff. There’s always things left behind cause no one wants to go lookin’ for everything.” Her eyes went wide in consideration, and she looked down at the collection. That was actually… really smart. She had only been able to afford so much on her allowance before graduating, but she’d never thought to go scavenging for abandoned weapons among the training grounds. As Naruto piled whatever could fit into his tote bag, she made sure to keep an eye out for any kunai or shuriken with an Uchiwa marking, having spotted a few and knowing they’d belonged to Sasuke. Whatever Naruto left out of his bag, that didn’t contain that marker, she deftly collected for herself. Waste-not, she supposed.

“A lot of these seem kinda old and dull, so I guess I should spend the evening doing some maintenance on them.” She sighed. “Maybe I should pick up a new storage scroll.”

“Huh?” Naruto was holding up the bag in both arms, looking almost as if he’d topple over - nevermind that he was supposed to be stronger than that. “What’sat, ‘ttebayo?” Sakura blinked at him cluelessly.

“A storage scroll.” She deadpanned, and they just stared at each other silently for a full minute. Eventually he began to look embarrassed, and had that expression that said he was probably about to get very loud. “There’s… different kinds. They’re kinda like exploding tags? I guess? They use seals, to store things for you. We didn’t cover them a lot in the Academy, but… anyway, it’ll help to transport stuff like this, or to store it.” He seemed torn between blustering that he already knew that and being amazed, so she sighed. “If I can afford one I’ll show you I guess. I might still have my notes from the Academy too? I’ll look.” Shrugging, she tried to keep the new collection of scavenged kunai bundled in a way that they wouldn’t drop onto her feet as she walked. “Maybe we can go scavenging like this more often too.”

The beaming smile and shouted declarations that followed her as they finally left were encouraging, if a bit over the top. Sakura figured she’d get used to it though, considering that they were stuck on a team together now.

* * *

As Sakura watched Naruto yawn and fidget the next morning, the Uchiha waiting at the entrance to the training grounds further away, she shook her head. Neither had toted along the plethora of weapons and supplies they’d brought the previous day, but they hadn’t an important test either. In contrast she had dragged along everything she had collected with Naruto the previous afternoon, intending to sharpen and do basic maintenance on them either during lunch or if their sensei was late again. Naruto looked like he was about to pass out again, though, so she pulled the folded collection of notes from her bag and offered them out as she took a seat near where he was leaning against a tree.

“Here.” His bleary, sleepy gaze did not give her much hope that he would actually hear whatever she said, but at least he’d carefully taken the papers from her. “Those are my notes from when we covered basic fuuinjutsu in class - paper bombs and storage seals. They didn’t teach us how to make them, but it’s got the basics. I think it has stuff about chakra theory too?” She shrugged and yawned, feeling her jaw crack as she did so, and the gradually waking blonde just continued staring at her. “Ask me if you don’t understand something… I was writing pretty fast sometimes, I think?”

She yawned again and looked around. No sign of Kakashi still, and with a slight shake to try to wake herself up more, she pulled the first dull kunai and her maintenance kit from her bag. Naruto was silent next to her, oddly so, for several minutes as she began to methodically clean and sharpen the tool. Eventually, she figured that he’d dozed off, like the previous morning, and Sakura snuck a peak to the side. He was blushing as he squinted at the papers in his hands, mouth moving silently as he read along. After a few moments, he looked at her, then over at where the Uchiha was brooding silently to himself. Were Uchiha able to sleep with their eyes open? Looking surreptitiously between them a few times, Naruto eventually grumbled that part of it was too messy to read and shoved it in her direction.

Looking at the clearly written section of notes, and the challenging stare that the blonde was giving her, Sakura stretched a little and nodded. With a passive apology about her writing, and the slightest grin, she told him what the word said, and he went back to staring at the page himself, soft smile and blush gracing his expression again.

Hours later Kakashi appeared with the slightest look of surprise on his face. Naruto was still diligently struggling through the pages of notes while she tried to carefully sharpen the weapons they’d scrounged the afternoon prior, having confiscated Naruto’s to sharpen as well. She was going to need a better maintenance kit if this was the condition they were going to be finding things. As Kakashi failed to even give an excuse, instead just staring at Naruto reading, the blonde huffed and spoke without looking up. “What time is it, Sakura-chan?”

“He’s three hours late again.” She offered to Naruto, stretching lightly as she stood from where she’d been hunched over some particularly dull kunai. “It’s almost nine.”

“Teme.” Naruto pouted, glaring at Kakashi before collecting the pages of notes together with extra care. She smiled at the consideration. She didn’t actually need the notes back, and probably had others that would help the boy, but it was sweet that he was treating them so gently. “Why don’t you show up on time?!”

“I got lost on the road of life…” Kakashi offered less-than-sheepishly, and all three of them rolled their eyes. “Well! I’ve been thinking since yesterday. While you managed to barely scrape through the test, your combat and teamwork skills are horrible. The last time I designed a real training regimen, it was for the Special Ops, so it would probably kill you as you are.” The cheerfully casual laugh and gestures made Sasuke glower, Naruto’s mouth drop open, and Sakura growl lightly to herself. “So I guess for now our training will have to just be combative training, with you learning to work together, every day. You’ll attack me as a team, on my mark, until I call for a stop at noon. We’ll then break for lunch, then sometimes do some easy missions to gain experience. For now, your motto, your  _ life _ , is ‘One team, One heart.’ Understood?” They just continued staring at him blankly, and he laughed again. Then, suddenly, he called for their attack, holding up his book to read and waiting for the first move.

Right. ‘ _ Training _ .’


	2. Chapter 2

Their team had only been together for a week, but already they had developed their own little routines. The mornings, after Kakashi had arrived hours late, had been ‘team combat training’ as he had indicated, which consisted almost entirely of them attacking him futilely and failing to even leave a scratch on his skin or ruffle his clothing. Naruto had, after the first two days, realized that Sakura was neither going to hit him, nor object to invitations to team lunch. She would also make a casual invitation in the Uchiha’s direction, though Sasuke was always already walking away at that point. They couldn’t afford Ichiraku or barbecue every day, especially with Naruto’s appetite, so they would inevitably end up back at his tiny apartment in the red-light district.

After the first disastrous attempt at grocery shopping with the boy, and the ridiculously gouged prices or blatant threats to leave stores or stalls, Sakura had ground her teeth, shut the very embarrassed Naruto into his apartment, and gone shopping herself. Dry staples she bought in bulk, along with a few perishables that she knew were easy enough to make. Thus, then, began Naruto’s kitchen education. He whined and complained, overly loudly, but the one time she’d looked like she would leave in frustration with his complaints - really she was just going to go crack the window because his tiny apartment got unbearably hot while cooking - he’d begged her not to leave and promised that he really didn’t hate it that much. It took an embarrassingly long time to assure him that she was still going to bully him into learning to take care of himself, and didn’t intend to leave.

It had only been a few days, so she still couldn’t trust the boy to not burn things if he cooked for himself, but he was at least trying between jovial complaints that ramen was perfect and didn’t need to be replaced by stupid vegetables anyway. Eventually she was going to learn how to make real ramen just to shut him up about that. Thankfully, any forceful suggestions she made about his diet and hygiene were taken without hesitation, though usually with a whine or complaint anyway, and she’d learned that much of it was due entirely to him just never learning better. She had, luckily, even gotten him to begin properly cleaning and brushing his hair - helped by his shock at how soft his own hair could be when taken care of properly.

After lunch they would usually go over the book about sealing theory, small though it was, or some of her notes from when she was in the Academy. His complete lack of understanding of many concepts in the book lead to her having to take him through other lessons that should have at least been touched on in his Academy training. His understanding of chakra had been pathetic, considering how much he had, and that he could produce hundreds of clones effortlessly. Nevertheless, she was quickly learning that despite the fact that he had been neglected, and his education compromised, he was much smarter than his behavior often indicated.

“There’s two types?” He asked, blinking big, innocent, blue eyes at her as she handed him a box of the onigiri they’d made at his apartment. While they didn’t need to go out scavenging for weapons again - his clones were making cursory sweeps of the training ground as they settled into a late lunch and some remedial lessons - they were still at the training grounds. Into the summer as they were, his apartment was too warm to stay in for too long. “Wow.”

She considered the onigiri in her hand. “More than two, if you want to get really technical, but for how you use chakra right now, just consider it two.” She smiled at his look of wonderment. “Naruto, what are the components of  _ really good _ ramen? Is it just one thing?”

“No! Dattebayo there’s a  _ bunch _ of things in really good ramen!” He nearly threw his food as he flailed around, then sheepishly saved it.

“But what does all ramen have in common?” He looked at her curiously. “Noodles and broth, usually, right?”

“Yeah!” He smiled brightly, then stuffed an entire onigiri into his mouth, chewing happily but keeping his lips closed as he’d learned to. She still winced, but at least she couldn’t see the food in his mouth, and he wasn’t trying to talk.

“To do jutsu, you need the noodles, and the broth.” She tried to explain, and blushed at his laugh. He lifted his hands to cover his mouth so that he wouldn’t spit or show the too-big mouthful, but couldn’t help the choking laugh. “Spirit chakra and physical chakra. We all have both, in different amounts. Ninja, and some special people who aren’t ninja, learn to control their chakra and combine the two, so that it can be used for things… like jutsu.” She pointed at the book on the grass near them. “What it was explaining in there is that a seal can be  _ activated _ with any kind of chakra, but that to draw a seal you have to infuse it with spirit chakra. Ofudu ink, like the stuff I showed you in that store, is made so that it can hold the spirit chakra, but other things can too I think. I don’t know a lot about seal masters, but I would bet that they could use a variety of things to draw seals, so long as it can hold the right amount of spirit chakra.”

“So the spirit chakra is the broth, and the Fugu-ink is the bowl.” Naruto giggled, and she smiled at him. “You’re really smart, Sakura-chan!”

“Ofudu ink. It takes being able to think in a different way to learn seals really well, I think.” She paused and looked at the storage scroll she’d brought with them for while he was trying to learn. “I may eventually be able to learn to copy this seal, but I don’t think I’ll ever be a seal master. You’re probably creative enough to do it… if you work on your calligraphy and chakra control though.” His eyes sparkled. “So when you use chakra for a jutsu, you combine the two kinds… like adding noodles to the broth in ramen. Combining it in different ways, different patterns, does different things. Our hand signs pattern the chakra for us, and help that concentration, like different ingredients for different flavors of ramen.”

“That’s really cool, dattebayo!”

“It can be, yeah.” She blushed a bit, and ate her food. While she’d understood the basics of it, she’d had to pick up a few extra books and scrolls from the library to get a better understanding so that she could explain to the boy. The wall of notes in her room was growing faster than it had while she was at the Academy.

* * *

Sakura huffed out heavy breaths, gulping in air, and stared forlornly at the silver-haired demon that was walking away from them. Naruto and Sasuke weren’t completely exhausted of course - they never seemed to be the way that she was - but they weren’t fresh as daisies either. Sasuke was making a good show of it as he sauntered away, very slowly, but Naruto groaned dramatically and yelled that they were never going to beat the old bastard. She needed to build up her stamina more, though, if she wasn’t going to feel like she was out of breath and dying after every morning ‘team combat’ session. These fights were leagues away from the sword practice she’d done with her father. “Ne, ne, Sakura-chan! Can you check my chakra feed again during lunch?!”

“Naruto-kun,” she huffed, and he winced as he looked away guiltily. She was just getting up to trudge toward her family’s house, and he followed with a pout. The previous evening, after having helped Naruto struggle through three hours of calligraphy practice - which he had finally, in private, admitted to his reading problems as well - the boy had agreed to running errands for their lunch break. Her statement that he might be good at sealing had motivated him beyond just the initial curiosity, and he was working as hard at learning for that as she’d ever seen him do for anything before. “I gotta get the stuff from home, first.”

“O- okay.” He paused, and she looked wearily back at him. “Do you… should I wait somewhere?”

“I’ve been in your apartment every day now, Naruto-kun. You  _ can _ come up to my room by now, you know.” She huffed with a grumble, and stretched in an effort to ease a muscle that Kakashi had kicked into a cramping fit. “Mama is out visiting grandfather, so you don’t have to worry about her being scary. Papa is probably working.”

“Oh… Okay!” He sounded oddly excited, and Sakura smiled. Maybe her complaining about the woman’s overbearing insistence that she shouldn’t be a ninja had scared the poor boy. He looked around in wide-eyed curiosity when they entered the small house, peeking almost meekly into the kitchen, and then following too closely, practically on her heels, when she went up to her room. “It’s, um, really nice, dattebayo.”

Looking around the hall, then at her… friend… Sakura smiled softly. It was a nice enough house, especially with how quickly they’d had to move to the village those years ago. Suddenly, the reason why Naruto seemed nervous struck her. He’d never had a friend’s house to visit before. His own apartment was among the brothels and bars, likely a trade-up from whenever he’d left the orphanage when younger. “Thanks. Here’s my room.” She gestured him in. “So long as you’re sure I’m not indecent, you can visit whenever you want. Use the window so Mama doesn’t freak out on you.” He looked disproportionately excited at that, and Sakura decided she’d been right about her suspicion. If he wouldn’t get stuck with the floor, she’d suggest him staying the night at some point too.

“Wow.” His tone was more awed than nervous this time, and she turned to see him staring around at the walls of her room. Sakura hadn’t had much in the way of friends before either, and hadn’t really expected much of a reaction to her notes-covered walls. His sky-blue eyes were wide as he looked around, almost sparkling, and she smiled softly in response, moving to put away her bokken. “That’s… that’s a lot of notes, Sakura-chan. Is that all ninja stuff?” Still staring, Naruto’s voice was a whisper.

“Most of it.” She continued smiling softly, guiding him a bit further into the room as she decided that they could spare a few moments before going out on her errand. “This is from when we were talking about chakra systems in class. I’ve been adding to it since I started working with you, so that’s why there’s older and newer stuff together.” She pointed up and to the right of that growing section of notes. “There is where I’ve been trying to break down the storage seal array, and my notes on the parts and functions of a seal. I’ve only found one book on seals in the Library, though, so it’s slower.” She turned, and gestured at other pictures and diagrams further away. “The shape, weight, and balance of a kunai and how to adjust for its movement and path in a throw. The math behind how it is affected by distance, height, and weather. I have the same for shuriken, but I’m not very good at those in practical use.” She pointed to the area below and to the left of her kunai notes. “That area in the corner, all around my bokken rack, is Kenshi kenjutsu notes and diagrams, from several years ago, but I tried to write them in code so that my Papa’s secrets were safe. I don’t think anyone will be bothering with a simple genin girl’s room though… and I’ve already memorised those katas anyway.” She brushed her fingers affectionately against a larger section of scroll-paper, a diagram made by Reijin-sama showing the paths of chakra through the body and how it was to be combined. She still hadn’t told her new friend about him.

“You’re mama… Sakura-chan hasn’t she  _ seen _ this? You were born to be a ninja.” He whispered, still staring in awe.

“She grounded me for a week the first time she realized what they all were.” Sakura sighed, sealing the first bundle of clothing into her only storage scroll. “That’s when she started sneaking dresses and makeup in here. Papa won’t let her take them down though, and it’s grown a lot since then.”

“Wow.” He looked at where she was folding up a few more dresses to carry by hand.

“She loves me, but, sometimes I can tell it’s more than her just being afraid I’ll get hurt… and she won’t tell me what it is.” Sakura sighed, then stood and stretched once more. “Papa understands though. I still love them both, and now I have you too. You get it.”

“Yeah! Dattebayo! Believe it!” He hugged her impulsively again, lifting her up and swinging her a little, and she yelped. At least the tight squeeze seemed to pop her back into alignment again. “Oof, sorry Sakura-chan.”

“Once I trade these in to the used clothing stall, I’ll check your chakra feed again,” she told him with a wry smile, leading him through the window instead of back downstairs. “And I’m going to get you a pair of black pants at least. So much orange!”

“But I like orange, dattebayo!!” He yelled, following after her, walls of notes forgotten.

The older woman that ran the stall and cart of used, if still serviceable, clothing gave both of them a smile as they landed nearby. She might have watched Naruto a bit warily, but much though seeing so many people do so irritated Sakura, Naruto seemed so used to it that he didn’t notice. “Listen, you can keep your orange jacket if you want, but I’m getting you some dark pants. I mean…  _ orange _ . You’ll be seen from a kilometer away.”

“Yeah yeah, Sakura-chan, you already said. I won’t get us killed because of my  _ clothes _ .” He laughed lightly, and she rolled her eyes, shoving him lightly into the shop. Maybe they’d find him a reversible jacket, black on one side, orange on the other, then he could keep the damn thing either way. Doubtful - who liked orange as much as her teammate? They could probably have one made, though, once they were making better money. He’d love that. He was actually pretty decent about the whole ordeal, and grabbed them both food from a cart as she haggled about the value of her trade ins, and haggled about the price of what she wanted.

Sakura poked around probably longer than she should, they’d be late for the afternoon missions, but the shop wasn’t exactly well organized either. She did find a few sleeveless turtleneck shirts that reminded her of the ANBU uniform enough that she snatched them up immediately, and an assortment of standard-issue ninja pants. In impulse, she reached for a final item: what looked to be an understated haori in dark gray, with darker patterns that might have been wind or waves. It wasn’t her usual style, but maybe she could either get Naruto to wear that instead of the orange jacket, or she could learn to hide her tools in the billowy arms.

“That’s pretty, Sakura-chan.” Naruto offered, smiling at her, and Sakura laughed lightly as she held it up. “I thought you would want flowers or something though, right? You’re a girl.”

“Baka.” She snorted at him, and folded that over an arm. “Did you find at least one pair of dark pants?” He pouted. “Naruto…”

At her growl he held up a pair of black issue-pants, similar to her own though they looked like they might have reinforced knees. “Do I  _ have _ to?”

“Looking at you hurts my eyes sometimes.” The old woman running the shop complained waspishly, and both of them stared at her incredulously. Turning her head away, she huffed. “If you’re willing to wear something  _ other _ than that orange, you can  _ have _ them.”

Naruto was scowling at the woman, but before he could blow up at her Sakura stepped in. “That’s very generous. How much is everything else?” She smiled brightly, affecting the same personality her mama had always insisted upon. The old woman looked imperiously at her, and then huffed. “I  _ suppose _ I could call it an even trade, with how nice what you’ve brought in for me is. I certainly hope you didn’t bring me all of your dresses though, young lady. You’d be so pretty in a dress.”

“Thank-you, obaa-san.” Sakura tilted her head and tried to force a blush. It didn’t work very well, but as she hastily sealed the chosen items into her scroll, the woman only watched them. “Naruto, can you go tell Kakashi-sensei and Sasuke-kun that I’ll be there in a few minutes? I know we’re late.” The blonde grumbled and glared at the woman, but ran off, pants in hand, while Sakura watched him go. “Thank-you again ma’am. So few people are kind enough to give Naruto-kun any type of consideration… even though he is just a young orphan.” She smiled fiercely, and the old woman shifted uncomfortably. “I mean, he can be a bit of a troublemaker sometimes, but I think it’s for attention. When you pay attention, he really just tries  _ so hard _ … so thank-you.”

“Hmph. Don’t mention it.” The woman huffed, looking away guiltily, then sighed as Sakura turned to leave the shop. “And… I’ll look out for some things in his size too… in case you can… convince him… to work on his wardrobe. Come back here when you need things.”

“Thank-you obaa-san!” She said again, this time more jovially, and then quickly sealed her selections into her scroll and ran away. Part of her had wanted to yell at the woman too, but if she could get at least one other person to regard Naruto with some kind of decency, she would do so. Besides, the old lady could have thrown them both out, instead of being rude about  _ giving _ the boy a free pair of pants.

Sakura absently wondered how long it would take her mother to realize there was only one dress and a yukata left in her closet, and that it had been refilled with mission and training clothing. She quickly tucked her sealing scroll into one of her weapons pouches, and ran to meet up with the rest of the team. While she felt that Kakashi could just deal with her being a little delayed, considering his record, she wasn’t  _ him _ so she didn’t like making them wait. Kakashi was standing and reading his smut book, Sasuke looking irritated, and Naruto hugging the pants protectively as he glared at the Uchiha. “Tell him, Sakura-chan!”

She skidded to a stop, looking between the boys cluelessly. After a moment, she turned fully to the blonde boy. “Tell him what?”

“They’re from  _ you _ , not that old granny, right?” He turned and glared at her, and her eyes widened. “ _ You _ were going to give them to me, and she just didn’t charge you. They’re from  _ you _ .”

She didn’t know why that could possibly be important, but if it made him feel better about the way the old shopkeep treated them, she’d go along with it. Shrugging, Sakura offered a nod. “Of course. I was even considering trying to get you to wear the haori too, but you said it would be pretty on me so I guess it’s not your style. You love your damn orange jacket too much.” She rolled her eyes, and Naruto blushed, but stuck his tongue out at her childishly for teasing. “Okay, let’s get those put away so we can do our mission. I’m pretty sure I still have room enough in my scroll for them. Do you want to try activating it?” She held out her sealing scroll, ignoring the others now. She was  _ pretty _ sure he had enough control to not destroy it...

Kakashi was busy with his smut book, he wouldn’t really push them to complete the mission until it was getting late enough that their schedule for the day was in dire risk of being incomplete, and Sasuke was pointedly ignoring them now that she’d confirmed that Naruto hadn’t been given some sort of gift by an old lady. She thought she saw Kakashi’s eye tracking her and Naruto as she watched the boy carefully attempt to feed just the tiniest amount of chakra into the seal to activate it. He was getting the hang of things slowly, his chakra control completely sporadic, but at least this time he managed to not overload the paper. The pants put away successfully, and Kakashi’s interest too obviously elsewhere when they looked up, they moved off for their afternoon missions.

* * *

“Kakashi-sensei.” She whispered across the mic as the three of them stalked the target. This was the  _ second _ time they’d had to find the damn thing, and while the mission paid better than the ridiculous weeding and fence painting they’d also been shuffled through, she was already dreading the aftermath. She’d rather be running messages across the village to different departments. She’d definitely rather be explaining another thing to Naruto that he could have learned earlier. “Do you know any good places to pick up gear?”

“Keep on mission. Location check-in.” He insisted, not bothering to answer. Sakura rolled her eyes; it wasn’t like they had enemies or even rivals out there to ambush them.

“Sasuke, point B.” The Uchiha’s voice crackled over their radio earpieces, and she pouted slightly.

“Sakura, point C. You don’t have to be rude.” She added.

“Naruto, I’m at point A.” The blonde said when Kakashi ignored her comment.

“You’re slow, Naruto.” Kakashi offered absently. “Okay team Seven…” there was a rustle, “target has moved! Sakura, enough distractions. Everyone follow it!”

She growled to herself, darting after her teammates as they chased down their most recent mission. This was so stupid. Naruto launched forward, grabbing around the feline’s torso and clinging. It was just a dumb cat, and they’d already caught and returned it at least once the previous week!

“Does it have a red ribbon on its ear? Are you sure it’s the target?” Kakashi asked, probably sitting and reading his smut book somewhere while they did all the work. She glared at the snarling thing as she strolled forward.

“It’s the target. No mistake.” Sasuke clarified, and Sakura darted forward to scruff the cat that was currently attempting to reduce Naruto to shredded bits. It hung and twisted in her grip, snarling and yowling in complaint. “Sakura has it under control again.”

She shook it just slightly, and growled audibly at the damn thing, which seemed to deflate after that. Couldn’t Sasuke carry it this time? It  _ hated  _ Naruto, and she’d had to keep it calm the week before. “Alright. Mission capture lost pet ‘Tora’ is complete. Return to home point.”

“Isn’t there a mission with a greater sense of urgency!!” Naruto screamed into the receivers as Sakura bound the cat up in a spare towel she’d brought, remembering the previous time with it. The cat hissed at her, but let her wrap its body so that only the head was exposed, and she growled right back at it. She bet Ino and her clan-kid teammates weren’t having to chase after demon-cats. Naruto proceeded to whine and rant the entire way back to the mission desk about how they needed a  _ real _ mission, and that Kakashi could at least pretend to answer Sakura’s questions. Sasuke stayed well out of the way of having to touch or hold the evil thing, and Naruto side-eyed them incredulously. She unwrapped the creature before they entered, scruffing it lightly even as she wrapped it in an arm to keep it in place, and she thought she heard a pathetic mewl from the thing as soon as it saw its owner. She watched not-quite-guiltily as Madame Shijimi proceeded to hug and smother the thing.

It would get away again, of course. They’d already discovered that it was a mostly recurring mission. Hopefully they wouldn’t have to be the ones to return it the next time - twice was enough in the mere month of training they’d had.

Hokage-dono began to read off the next mission they were stuck with, and Sakura cringed at the thought of babysitting duty. Even with the fresh scratches from the cat clinging to the arm she’d had it in, she wondered if Tora or babysitting was worse. “Noooo! No! No thank-you!” Naruto’s exclamation made her sigh and drop her head back to stare at the ceiling. Hyperactive fool. “As for me, I want to do like, a more exciting mission! Give us something else!”

Sakura gave a silent plea for patience. While she agreed that a slightly more challenging mission would be preferable, their jounin-sensei hadn’t actually  _ taught _ them anything. All they ever did was ‘team combat’ training, wherein he didn’t even correct them or instruct, or chore-like missions. She’d become excessively aware of their inadequacy over the short course of their time as a team. At that, she was still teaching Naruto more than their sensei was.

“You fool!” Iruka-sensei exploded, and Sakura dropped her head again to watch him rant at Naruto, who would only get louder now that he had someone to shout with. After the years teaching the boy, how had Iruka  _ not _ learned that Naruto only got louder if you were loud with him? “You’re still bottom rookie! At the start everybody moves up the ladder by gaining experience from simple missions!”

“But it’s been nothing but blah missions so far!” Naruto shouted right back. Yup. Just… loud. “I wanna do something more… ugh!”

“Shut up, baka.” Kakashi grunted, punching him lightly to the ground. Sakura sighed and moved to help the blond boy up, keeping a restraining hand on his shoulder.

“Naruto, it’s necessary to explain to you what a mission is…” The Hokage had a strange habit of indulging in the blonde boy’s fits, explaining things more patiently than the majority of the other adult ninja around. He ignored Sasuke’s disrespectful grunts of acknowledgement and brooding too. Maybe he just liked kids. “Requests pour into the village every day. They range from babysitting to assassinations…” She cringed at the thought of doing such a thing so soon. They definitely needed more training for that. “A wide spectrum of requests are recorded on the request list… and they are separated into A, B, C, and D ranks in order of difficulty. In the village everyone below me is divided up by ability in the order of jounin, Chunin, and Genin. We at the highest level distribute the requests as missions to ninjas who have the abilities that suit that mission. If a mission is successful, a fee comes from the client… which is where your pay comes from. Nevertheless, you guys have  _ just _ become genin. D rank is about the best you can do.”

She shook Naruto’s shoulder so that he would indicate that he had been paying attention, and he grumbled at her like the angry cat had earlier. Sakura briefly experienced a moment of deja vu. “I know all that, old man.” She shook him gently again. “H-hokage-jiji. I’m not the prankster you knew! I’m a ninja now!” He looked at Sakura, then reluctantly at Sasuke. “We’re a team!” He snorted and spun, crossing his arms and shrugging off her hold. “We’re not babysitters!”

She sighed and exchanged a long-suffering look with Kakashi. Peering at Sasuke, the broody boy looked like he was in rare agreement with Naruto, hands shoved tightly into his pockets and glaring at the Hokage. With a slight laugh, the old man leaned over the desk to speak again. “Okay, prove that you have reached the qualification for C rank. Stand on the ceiling.”

“... what?” Naruto turned to look at him, stunned into silence.

“Stand on the ceiling, Naruto-kun. Prove that you’ve progressed enough to accept Rank C missions, and I’ll assign you one right now.” He smirked around his pipe, and Sakura blinked between them curiously. Stand on the… she thought she’d seen the occasional ninja run up walls, or stand high in the Konohagakure forest’s trees with enough surety that they had to be doing something special… but stand on the  _ ceiling _ ?

“That’s impossible!” Naruto yelped, glaring.

“Iruka-san.” The Hokage instructed, nodding at the chunin instructor that had been mysteriously assisting with mission placement since they’d graduated. Smiling smugly at the three of them, Iruka stood, stretched a little, and then walked up the wall, casual as could be. Standing on the ceiling and turning to stare at them, he folded his arms. “As you can see, Naruto-kun, it is possible. When your team learns to efficiently control their chakra and can do the same, I will give you C rank missions. Until then, D rank is all you’re qualified for. Now, your next mission is an errand to the neighboring town to babysit the Chief Counselor's boy, help with digging for potatoes, and repairing the fence wall of a farmer’s land. The details will be given to your jounin-sensei.”

* * *

“Sakura-chan.” She glanced up from where she was helping Naruto pack for the short stay they’d be doing for this series of tasks. “Why’d ya need to know where to buy supplies? We usually try to find ‘em in the forest, or abandoned at the training grounds… don’t we? And we just got some more clothes… haven’t, um, haven’t my clones done a good job?”

“Yeah.” She straightened and looked around his apartment. They’d have to do another check on his refrigerator when they got back. Her hand tugged at the turtleneck of one of the shirts from their last shopping trip, and repositioned her hitai-ate around it. “But that’s just kunai and shuriken, Naruto. Sometimes we find senbon or razor wire, but that’s not all we use. I think I’m close to getting the array pattern for the storage scrolls right, and I’ll need a blank scroll and Ofudu ink for that. You’ll need those too, once you get the hang of it, and I wanted to start looking at some weights and more body armor. We don’t make a lot on these D rank missions, but we won’t be prepared for the other ones unless we can get other supplies too. Maybe I should ask Iruka-sensei the next time we go to the missions desk...”

“Oh! Right! Dattebayo, I need more paper for my notes too!” He groaned and whined then, apparently only just remembering. It wasn’t something he’d been used to keeping in stock before graduating, but he’d blasted through all of the paper she’d had spare, along with every scrap he’d had as well. She suspected that he’d ruin more than a few scrolls with wasted Ofudu before he was through attempting to make a storage scroll… he was bound to mess up the chakra flow at some point, most people did according to the book. “Do you need to pack too?”

“I put together an emergency camp kit after the last time I had to shower here after a mission. It’s in my scroll instead of my backup weapons.” She reached back and tugged idly at her low-set ponytail, considering the bag that Naruto had put together. “I don’t think you’re going to need the caltrops this trip. We’d probably get in trouble if the brats we’re babysitting got to them.”

“Eh-heh, yeah, you’re probably right.” He giggled a little, rearranging things before grabbing the bag and following her out. Meeting Sasuke at the gates meant that they’d probably be stuck there for a while, considering that Kakashi had simply said he’d be there ‘soon’.

“Going out of the village?” The friendly voice from one of the two gate guards made her glance in that direction, observing the man critically. “Is this your first time?”

“Yeah, ‘ttebayo! But we’re gonna be awesome!” Naruto exclaimed, lighting up. “Kakashi-sensei is always late though!”

“Oh… Kakashi-sama. You guys are jounin Track then. Good job!” He smiled, then gestured at the other guy. “We ended up in the Genin Corps, but Izumo is gonna go for the jounin trials anyway. Do you guys have a C rank?” When that only made Naruto grumble irritably, and Sasuke scoff, he looked at her curiously.

“No. Just D right now.” She said casually, holding his gaze easily. “Jounin-track. That’s what the three-man genin-team is called?” She tilted her head, hands still in her pockets as she considered him.

“Well I don’t think we’re supposed to be telling baby-faced genin fresh from the Academy… but I guess it’s better to know what your options are.” He smiled brightly at her, but she only offered a curious expression. “The two main options out of the Academy are either the jounin track, if you are passed by a jounin-sensei’s test, or genin corps. On jounin track, they assume that you have the potential to eventually make jounin, and so you get more personalized training. In the corps we just had a chunin captain, with a general training schedule to follow and assigned mission days where we did a lot of chores and messenger stuff. In either, you can discover and get assigned a specialty, or apply to work with one of the different departments. Umino Iruka was in the corps, and went for Academy instruction. We’re on guard rotation. There’s also things like the medic corps, intelligence, messengers… you know, that stuff.”

“Hmn.” She nodded, that checked out with what she’d learned before the test, and what she’d tried to explain to Naruto. She’d definitely been right when she assumed that by failing his test they’d have gone into the Corps instead of back to the Academy though. Glancing over at Naruto, she saw him arguing with a street vendor about… something. Sasuke was postured similarly to her, hands in pockets and glowering impatiently in Naruto’s direction. She didn’t know if a tiny amount of teamwork was enough to say they could make it to jounin, but both boys were skilled nevertheless, and it was the path she knew she preferred.

“Izumo they’re so cute, you gotta see this. The curious pink one and the Uchiha kid pose the same!” Whoever this guy was called happily to his partner, and she could feel Sasuke’s glare at her. She huffed. “You boys are so cute. You’ll do just fine on your mission.”

Sakura looked down at her fitted shirt, displaying nothing even similar to  _ womanly curves _ and blushed. Rolling her eyes, she huffed and stomped over to where Naruto was still arguing. Grabbing him by the back of his collar, she began dragging him further away from the stall. Kakashi was finally ambling up, at least, so they could get going. As they trudged out, Kakashi not even offering protocol by explaining their departure reason or likely return date, she vaguely heard Sasuke growl at the chatty guard that she was a girl, not a boy.

While the initial excitement of finally being outside of the village had distracted Naruto to start, he had quickly moved back to complaining about not being a babysitter. Sakura wasn’t much looking forward to it either, but she figured that Sasuke was mostly still brooding about being compared with her at the gates. “Ne, ne, Kakashi-sensei!” The silver-haired jounin grunted distractedly. “How do you walk on the ceiling? Teach us to walk on the ceiling so that we can do a C rank mission!”

Sakura looked the blonde’s way, then over at Kakashi. Subtly, Sasuke grunted in agreement. Kakashi was silent for a few steps, still looking ahead. “I don’t think you have the chakra control for it yet.” Naruto whined and Sakura rolled her eyes. “But… it will keep you occupied, so I guess I can teach you. You can’t fall behind trying to learn it though, we still have our missions.” Naruto immediately began jumping up and down, running and cheering that Kakashi would be teaching it to them. The jounin waited for him to calm down, still strolling leisurely forward. Apparently, they would be running most of the way there the next morning, after making whatever distance they could and camping this first day. “Before we get into that, let’s explain Chakra power for a ninja, from the basics…”

Naruto groaned loudly, and Sasuke huffed. Both probably thought they understood it well enough. Honestly, she’d gone over chakra basics with Naruto while trying to teach him to control it for storage seals and the blonde probably did understand whatever Kakashi was about to simplify for them. “Riight… Chatorah, right?” Naruto joked loudly, and Sakura held back a giggle at his mocking. “Broth and noodles!”

“It’s… Chakra….” Kakashi sighed, pulling out his smut book. “Right, Sakura-chan?” She looked at him, and sneered when she realized that he was passing the buck to her for explaining whatever Basics he thought they needed to know. Just how in depth did he want her to go, anyway? Lazy-ass sensei.

“Chakra is the energy that is used by a Ninja when he uses a jutsu. It is produced in two forms in our bodies, Physical Chakra and Spiritual Chakra.” She lectured, hands in her pockets and hunched slightly, pouting. Naruto was nodding along, having already heard that a few times during her ramen lecture. Maybe she’d start getting really complex as they went along, just to annoy Kakashi. “Physical Chakra and stamina is produced by the body’s conditioning, and is made by every cell in the body. It is used for strength and physical energy, and can be increased or decreased through physical training, conditioning, and other chemical methods. This is the chakra that is produced through soldier pills and other drugs that are utilized by ninja during war-time scenarios, and high risk missions. An excess of this chakra can also create difficulty sleeping, digestion problems, overproduced collagen during healing that leads to excessive scarring, and other such problems. Spiritual Chakra is produced by the will, experience, and your connection to your self and mind. You can increase this chakra through meditation, study, mission experiences, and the use of your existing spiritual chakra to temper your will. An excess of this chakra can result in anxiety and nervous disorders, difficulty focusing, and loss of appetite. In many texts, these two chakra types are sometimes referred to as the Heaven and the Earth.”

Next to her, she saw Naruto’s jaw drop and Kakashi look at her contemplatively. She’d never explained it in such depth to her blonde teammate, and she doubted that Kakashi had thought she knew it that well. There was more of course, but that would be a bit too much to lecture on without knowing what he wanted the lecture for. Sasuke was glowering at her as if it could burn her without the use of a jutsu.

“These two energies exist within every person in a variety of levels, from very small to very large. It is the special trait of ninja to be able to manipulate and control them. In other words, jutsu wring out these two special chakra energies and combine them to form an otherwise impossible effect. It is gathered and focused within the body’s core. This is called ‘combining the Chakra’ typically. Chakra, once focused, is formed into a jutsu. A ninja, during training, learns pathways and patterns that are aided through the use of hand signs. Using hand signs helps ninja to focus the chakra into those specific patterns, and it results in a jutsu effect. The more complex the pattern, the greater the effect. An example of this would be Sasuke-san’s fire jutsu. All of these jutsu use the sign of the Tiger, which patterns the focused chakra into a ‘heat’ signature, and usually result in a fire jutsu.” Naruto’s mouth was perpetually hung open now, and Kakashi was staring at her unabashedly. Sasuke tried to look cool and disinterested at the sudden mention of his techniques, but she thought that maybe she was overdoing it a little bit. Scaling back, Sakura smiled and shrugged to herself. “Essentially, if you collect the right amount of physical chakra and spiritual chakra, and form it the right way using your hand signs, you can do the jutsu that you want. Like combining the right broth with the right noodles, to make ramen. Some ninja find this easier than others.”

“Right. Iruka really does have good students.” Kakashi commented, putting the book away and still staring at her. “The academy teaches more about it than I remember.”

“Ne, ne, that’s just Sakura-chan-sensei!” Naruto declared happily. “She’s always that smart. Sakura-chan-sensei already explained what chakra is to me. I’ll just learn it with my body!” Sakura huffed lightly as Naruto declared that. Where the hell had the ridiculous name come from? They hadn’t even been a team that long, and though she might have been working diligently with him to teach him about what he’d missed in the Academy, she wouldn’t call herself a sensei. She was still struggling to  _ feel _ his chakra as it moved around during his attempts at bunshin and practice, to be able to tell him when he was screwing up. It didn’t help that his typical method seemed to be ‘flood it with chakra.’

“Naruto is absolutely right. We’re already able to use Jutsu.” Sasuke agreed stubbornly, surprising most of them with the first statement. She glared at the Uchiha, having hoped that his mastery of fire jutsu would have at least taught him that chakra control was important.

“No! All of you still haven’t used Chakra efficiently.” Kakashi’s statement backed her thought there, though she was briefly insulted to be lumped in with the boys. Then again, understanding the intricacies of  _ how _ chakra worked was a different thing than actually being able to control it - she understood shuriken just fine, but still couldn’t get the wrist flick and grip right to make them fly accurately. Briefly, she wondered if she’d even performed jutsu in front of him; regular bunshin were useless against ninja, so she hadn’t bothered with that, and there’d been no need for henge so far… she didn’t  _ think _ she’d tried a substitution… “As Sakura explained earlier, combining chakra means picking up both the physical and the spiritual energies, and mixing them together within the body. The amount of each energy, the preparation of the energy, changes based on the jutsu you want to activate. You’re not using chakra efficiently if you think you can just flood your jutsu with whatever you can gather.”

“And whose fault is that?” Sakura grumbled, hands still stuffed in her pockets so she wouldn’t throw a kunai or senbon at him like she was sorely tempted to do. Kakashi raised his eyebrow at her, and she snorted. “You haven’t exactly taught us about it before, and it’s not Academy curriculum. I learned everything that I know through studying. Most of what Naruto knows I’ve taught him.”

“Even if you’re able to combine a lot of chakra, if you’re not able to control it in a balanced way, the effectiveness of the jutsu not only will be cut in half, but the jutsu may not activate at all. Wasting energy will prevent you from battling for long periods.” Kakashi lectured, the boys more than her, and tried to sound stern after her rebuke. He completely ignored what she’d said, pretending not to have heard. “That is only some of the weaknesses that can occur. Some jutsu will fail with too much chakra. Some with too little. Some will activate, but if the chakra isn’t balanced it will be weak or do something different. The list continues.”

“So what do we do?” Naruto asked, laughing nervously and rubbing the back of his head. He glanced briefly at Sakura in askance, as if she’d know.

“You need to learn to control the chakra with your body! It’s difficult training that requires you to put your life on the line to master!” He sounded dead serious, and she huffed at him taking Naruto’s phrase. Learning to sense and control your own chakra, while it would take training, was more than just smashing your head against a wall and hoping that you felt it. He was such a dramatic when you got past the smut books and lazy nature. “Tree climbing.”

Sakura stopped walking, staring at his back as he continued. The other two had stopped as well, and it took Kakashi several strides to realize they weren’t walking with him. “Tree climbing?” she asked. Was he fucking  _ serious _ ? If they could stand on a ceiling by climbing trees, they would have been able to do that before they graduated the Academy!

“Hai.” He turned and looked at them blandly. “I’ll show you tonight at camp. The farther we get, the more time we have for you to practice. The purpose of the training is learning to accumulate the required amount of chakra where it is needed, in an area that is more difficult for most ninja. Even experienced ninja have difficulty, sometimes, in focusing it in specific areas, instead of toward a jutsu.”

“We just have to get far for camp?” Naruto asked, and Sasuke glanced at him, then nodded. Unexpectedly, Sakura found herself lifted in Naruto’s arms, and the boys both dashed forward. She wriggled for a good mile, yelling to be let down, before he was willing to stop and put her back on her feet. Poking him hard on the forehead, she lectured for several minutes that he needed to let her run on her own and that he had to give her  _ warning _ when he was going to be crazy. Nevertheless, when he was properly chastised, she turned and ran with him in an effort to get closer to the town. The more time they had, the more training they could do… and this was the first thing that Kakashi was  _ really _ going to train them in since the first day. They’d been focused on his first ‘battle skill’ of taijutsu for so long that she was afraid they’d never learn anything else.

All three of them were a bit tired from running by the time Kakashi called a stop to make camp. She felt a little as if she’d had an entire day sparring, instead of just a morning, and wished she’d been incorporating more running into her routine than she had. Camp came together slowly, as did dinner, but afterward Kakashi finally stood, smut book in hand, and they jumped to join him. “Okay… tree-climbing. But it’s not just simple tree-climbing, you climb without your hands.” He was staring into his book instead of even looking at them, and Sakura felt a little cheated. He was basically describing what Iruka had done but replacing a wall and ceiling with a tree. If they knew how to do that, they wouldn’t have asked him. Casually, after a second’s silence, he turned and strolled up the tree in the same manner Iruka had done, still reading his damn book. “Focus the chakra on the bottoms of your feet to make them stick to the tree trunk. If you use chakra well, you can do things like this. The aim of this training is to accumulate only the required amount of combined chakra in your feet. The amount of chakra used for tree-climbing is very subtle, and this is surprisingly difficult for those with little control. Some ninja only have the control to use chakra in jutsus and in their hands. Some ninja can do this in their feet too. The second aim of this training is to maintain only that amount of chakra in the feet. In battle, controlling and maintaining chakra can become difficult. Training like this can make that easier. It takes hours and days of training to be able to learn to climb trees. For some people, it takes months to even get halfway up a tree.”

“But we have to go to that village and  _ babysit _ tomorrow.” Naruto grumbled, and the man let his chakra control loose, dropping easily to a crouch on the ground before going to sit against a different tree.

“Well, nothing will come from me saying this and that. You have to learn it with your bodies. Use a kunai to mark how far you make it up, and get to sleep eventually.” He settled in, apparently leaving them to their own devices, and Sakura scowled at him. “You won’t be good enough to just walk up from the start. Try running first.”

As both boys pulled out a kunai and turned to begin running up trees, odd expressions of concentration as they did so, Sakura looked instead at the tree nearest her. It sounded like you needed finite control. There should be just enough chakra to support her, but not so much that it attacked the surface she was standing on. After having seen what happened from too much chakra the one time Naruto tried to prematurely draw a storage seal, she knew that too much could be dangerous. She didn’t want to completely stick in place either, though that may prove useful in certain situations later… so it had to be a push and pull. Maintaining that level of concentration, until she’d developed the habit, would prove tiring too.

Sakura considered pulling out a kunai to mark her progress… but really that seemed counter-productive. If they couldn’t learn in one night, they wouldn’t have the benefit of those marks to compare to the next day, or the day after. Instead, while the boys were busy rushing trees and trying to mark higher and higher like it was a race, she concentrated on her own chakra - how it moved through her body and how it felt. The slick, flowing feeling rushing in her veins was welcome, and similar to the leaf-concentration exercise that they’d had to do back at the academy. They hadn’t damaged their leaves then either, though they’d been much younger. Hmm… except for Sasuke, his had crumbled into debris.

Concentrating her chakra on her feet, she moved them around, testing to see how it felt to pick them up and move while standing. The grass leaves were a little abused from her initial spike of concentration, but otherwise fine. Observing Naruto and Sasuke for a few moments, simply pacing in place while she tried to maintain it, she noticed Sasuke’s blasted footprint in the bark, and the blonde slipping as he went. So too much would not only damage the bark, but push her off probably, and too little and she would slide right back down. Naruto probably couldn’t control the chakra to concentrate it in his feet, otherwise he’d probably have blasted the tree in half knowing him.

Casually, she walked to her tree and placed a single foot on it. Concentrating, she waited first for the sensation of slick, then sticking, and stopped before it blasted. It took only seconds to learn the amount she needed, and with a bit of focus, she walked up as casually as Kakashi had. She might not be able to do it under strain or stress, or for long periods, but it definitely wasn’t that difficult.

“So it looks like the one with the best control of chakra is Sakura, the  _ girl _ …” Kakashi’s statement made her growl and throw a senbon at him impulsively. He dodged easily, despite the surprise, and stared at her incredulously. Naruto was ignoring Kakashi’s pouting, and cheering her on for figuring it out so quickly. She turned to smile at the blond, expression quickly turning to a smirk as she saw the look on Sasuke’s face.

“Go Sakura-chan-sensei!” Naruto’s addition of the second-honorific was a bit much, but she still blushed. “That’s what you get from my teammate teacher! Just like the seals! Yeah! Believe it!”

“Well, not only does Sakura-chan have an excellent grasp of how chakra works, her control and stamina are pretty good for this stage.” Kakashi said, shifting nervously and expecting her to throw another senbon at him. If he equated any of that to gender, instead of skill as a ninja, she probably would. It didn’t matter if she was a girl… she had graduated the academy just like the boys had! He did proceed to use it to egg Naruto and Sasuke on, which made her roll her eyes at them both. Naruto yelled about it, but of course didn’t seem to begrudge her the ability.

Over an hour later, eventually having to run due to the depletion of what remained of her chakra, Sakura lay at the base of her tree, staring up into the dark leaves above. After running for the entirety of the afternoon, then the chakra exercise of this tree-climbing, she was exhausted. Sasuke and Naruto were still going strong, though bruised and dirty, but they hadn’t made it more than halfway up. She turned to look at them both, huffing deep breaths in and out. She’d keep going until she couldn’t, it was the only way to push herself harder… then she could sleep.

“Sakura-chan-sensei!” Naruto’s loud voice rang out, and she winced before rolling to her feet. Taking a break to go check on him, she peered curiously at his tree, lit by their campfire. He’d made it about a quarter of the way up, so not quite as far as Sasuke, but still better than she’d initially expected. He had insane amounts of stamina, and even more chakra judging on the number of clones he could spam, but minimal control. “Can you give me some tips?”

She observed the tree again, and then her friend. Sighing, she looked over at Sasuke, who was trying to look like he wasn’t watching them, and Kakashi, who was feigning sleep. “Ne, Naruto…” he looked at her. “Where do you  _ feel _ the energy when you make clones?” He stared at her as if she were crazy. “Just make one and try to figure that, hai?” He grunted, but closed his eyes and concentrated, and suddenly a second Naruto stood next to her. After a second it dismissed, and then was reformed as the boy tried over and over to figure out where and how he felt his chakra energy.

“In my belly.” He finally answered. “Like… warm… hot wind in my belly, swirling around.” He nodded, eyes closed in continued concentration, agreeing with himself.

“And how does it travel when you make clones?” She asked, still staring at him patiently. He went through another several rounds of clone creation as he concentrated. After their time studying together, he’d learned to at least listen to her when she asked him those things. She always had a reason that she’d explain to him if he just cooperated.

“It… kinda compresses… and then blasts through my whole body.” He sounded confused at that, and she nodded. That made sense, for how the technique worked.

“Instead of running up the stupid tree…” she glared at the tree for good measure, and the giant lump forming on his head from his falls, “Just stand there for a little, trying to move that hot, swirling wind feeling through your body. Tighten it in your belly, like when you’re going to make clones, and then move it around.” He nodded, and she stood there patiently as he was silent in concentration. Off to the side, she saw Sasuke discreetly copying them… though luckily not with one of his fire jutsu. Gradually, she felt the buildup of Naruto’s chakra, and then the shift of large amounts of it, first all over his body, and then finally concentrated in his hands, then his stomach, then his knees, and finally his feet. “You don’t need  _ that _ much… but just place one foot on the tree, and gradually increase the amount until your foot sticks. Learn that amount. It’s a push and pull. If you don’t have pull, you won’t stick, if you don’t have push, you’ll get stuck in place… if you use too much… you’ll blast it apart instead of staying there, because you overloaded it. Regular objects can only hold so much chakra… so too much damages the tree instead of letting you stick there, just like with the paper that the storage seals are drawn on.”

She glared over at Kakashi’s “sleeping” form for turning her into the instructor for this as Naruto gradually tested chakra amounts on the tree, over and over again. His control was all over the place, too much then too little, but he gradually managed to narrow the control to a range that might work, and set to another run. Glancing over, she saw Sasuke standing with his foot on the tree, glaring at it in concentration. Sighing, and walking over, she looked at his previous progress.

“Stop concentrating on the top.” She advised finally, on a hunch, and he glared at her. “You’re so focused on your goal, that you don’t pay enough attention to what you’re doing. It’s why you reach halfway, and then either wane off or blast too much. Concentrate on what you’re doing, not the end of the line.” He continued to glare at her before turning and moving to make another run of it. With another sigh Sakura turned back to the camp and stretched, ready to go to bed. She’d managed it, even if she needed to work on her stamina, and if they had missions the next day, she should at least try to rest before having to deal with some town councilor's brat.

The next morning, Sakura was surprised to find Sasuke curled at the base of his tree, kunai clutched in his hand, a series of slash marks above his initial footprint blast. Naruto was in a similar place, though his legs and arms were splayed wildly, his own progress close to but not quite matching Sasuke’s. They’d both done fairly well, and Kakashi was already preparing breakfast for them. How long had they gone the previous night? Tossing a pebble at each to wake them, she observed silently. Sasuke woke with a start, and Naruto only groaned and rolled over lazily, but when the Uchiha looked up to compare their trees, he looked shocked and angry. Perhaps Naruto had outlasted him, and made progress in the gap.

* * *

“Ne… Sakura-chan…” She looked at Kakashi curiously, then again ahead at where the boys had developed a strange, if amusing, training pattern. They would outrun the casual jog that Kakashi had set on their way back to Konoha, and pick a tree to try their climbing at. Then, once Kakashi and Sakura had passed them, they would run ahead and do the same. It was very amusing. “You seem to know a lot about chakra.”

“I read a lot.” She shrugged, unconcerned. “I also tried to find a way to explain it more simply to Naruto, when I was trying to teach him about storage seals at first. He’s past that now, and I’m explaining more complexity when we study.”

“Naruto… studies… with you?” He asked, and she nodded with her jaw set with irritation. As if Kakashi hadn’t seen the blonde boy reading scrolls sometimes when Kakashi was late for morning training. “Hmn.” He made no further comment, which was probably a good idea. If he insulted Naruto’s intelligence, or equated anything to their genders again, she’d have probably thrown something at him again.

The rest of the jog and travel back to Konoha went much the same. They allowed the boys to leapfrog them with tree-climbing training, and both Naruto and Sasuke exhausted themselves with practice over the camp night. They did seem to be making progress, though, and she could sense a greater presence and efficiency in Naruto as the hours passed too. Kakashi gave them two days off of training and missions once they returned, to rest up, but she highly suspected it was either so he could be lazy, or so that he could take a solo mission and earn better money.

* * *

On the second day of their brief time off, Sakura found Naruto at Ichiraku, bragging about his progress with tree climbing and already three bowls in. Slipping into the seat next to him, the ramen stand workers all greeted her happily and praised Naruto for bringing them more customers. “Hey Naruto, how far did you get?”

“Almost to the top. I’m gonna beat Sasuke!” He bragged, laughing, and she smiled, shaking her head. “Do you think we’ll get a good mission tomorrow, once I show them I can walk on the ceiling?”

“Maybe.” She shook her head at him again, and was happy when a tonkotsu ramen was placed in front of her. Only a month into their time as a team, and already Ichiraku knew her order usual. That was a little frightening. “Will you be able to do that by tomorrow?”

“Yeah!” He paused, blushing, and looked into his new bowl. “Maybe.”

“Well, finish lunch so that we can train.” She told him, starting on her own soup.

Naruto and Sasuke didn’t manage to get it that afternoon, though they definitely came close. The next morning, instead of making them do team combat training, Kakashi let them continue working at tree-climbing, and Sakura practiced it herself by trying different kata-steps as she walked up and down the trees. It was two more days of intense training at the trees, Sakura slowly building her own stamina higher, before Naruto and Sasuke could solidly claim to be able to perform the task well. Both would still need practice before it became second nature, as it seemed to be for Kakashi, but Sakura secretly felt that it would take her some time before she got there too.


	3. Chapter 3

“Okay fine! If you insist…” Sakura looked quickly at the old ninja, surprised at his outburst, then at where Naruto was clinging to his concentration as he hung upside down on the ceiling. “I’ll have you do a Rank C mission… you’ll be bodyguards for someone.”

Her eyes widened, and she glanced at the boys. Bodyguards… well all they’d been training in was team fighting, even if they hadn’t improved much, and the tree climbing. That combat was against a jounin though… she wondered how good she might be against a more equal opponent. Sasuke looked inordinately pleased by the prospect, and she saw Naruto starting to get excited. He released his hold on the ceiling to land next to her and cheer happily before his distraction caused him to fall and lose the mission for them. Naruto then began to speculate about who they could be guarding, each idea more outlandish than the last. At least it would be a better mission, though.

“Don’t get so hasty! I’ll introduce you now!” The smirk the old man was sporting made Sakura a little paranoid, and she wished that she’d remembered to bring her wakizashi in with her. Right now she just looked like a skinny teenager in a tank top and shorts… which honestly so did the other two. When, exactly, was she supposed to feel like she actually  _ looked _ like a ninja? “Could you please come in…?” His voice had raised, and he looked purposefully at one of the side doors.

Sakura clenched her hands into fists, turning to stare nervously. Their first real client… to guard. Fuck but Naruto was probably going to be embarrassing. “What’s this!?” The door was slid open, and she held back a sneer at the sight of the drunkard on the other side. “It’s just a bunch of darned squirts!” He chugged some of his sake, and she felt her face twitch with the desire to let the sneer out. “Particularly you, the smallest one with the idiot face. Are you really ninja?”

She felt herself get irrationally angry, clenching her teeth and glaring at the man. Sure Naruto was irritating and energetic most of the time, but he actually had some damn decent potential whenever anyone paid him any attention. As Naruto laughed and tried to figure out which of them the man was referring to, belatedly realizing it himself and starting to get angry, she grabbed the back of his collar.

“Shut up, Naruto-kun.” She hissed, clapping a hand over his mouth, and was grateful for Kakashi helping her to hold him back. “He’s the client right now. You wanted this job.”

“I’m Tazuna, veteran bridge builder.” Mentally she tagged on ‘and alcoholic.’ “You’ll be risking life and limb in guarding me to the max, until I return to my land and complete my bridge!” He glared dubiously at them. “Though I think they should exchange you for a real ninja team.”

She growled low in her throat at him, but refrained from commenting, and nodded as Kakashi directed that they would be meeting at the gates in an hour to depart. If they were leaving immediately, she’d have to leave a note for her parents. She helped to drag a still muffled and protesting Naruto out of the building, directing him to pack for the mission and that she’d check over it with him once she’d finished at her own home.

“Petal?” the tentative voice made Sakura look up, startled, to see her Papa leaning heavily in her doorway. She hadn’t expected to be able to see either parent before she left for the mission. She’d already left a note in the kitchen for them. “Out of the village, you go again?”

“We have a longer mission this time.” She breathed deeply, having carefully secured all of her weapons’ maintenance tools away, as well as her meagre stock of trap materials. “It’s a… um… bodyguarding mission. It may be a few weeks this time.” His gaze gradually morphed into the most confusing mix of pride and sadness, and his eyes were a little glossy as he grumbled about her growing up too quickly. “Papa! Don’t get all… weird about it like mama does.”

“Of course not.” He laughed lightly and reached forward to hug her around the shoulders. “Come here… before you leave, I have something for you.” She shuffled a little nervously, letting him lean more on her than normal when she noticed his limp seemed more pronounced. In the room her parents shared he hobbled over to the rack that his sword set had been displayed on. Ceremoniously, he lifted the wakizashi from the stand, staring at it fondly before turning and bowing as he held it out for her to take. “Petal, it is… ironic that of the first long mission as a ninja, you would have this. It is tradition that the first mission of a Kenshi, after training, be to guard. Ready you may not be, for the full set, but for this trip take my wakizashi. Let me feel as if some part of me helps to protect you.”

“Thank you, Papa.” She ran an affectionate thumb over the tsuba of the weapon, and smiled softly at him. “I… thank you.” Sakura breathed out slowly, then glanced at the time. Wincing, she shook her head. “I have to go, though.” He hugged her tightly around the shoulders again, and whispered for her to be careful, before she nodded finally and darted away to catch up with Naruto and the others. Knowing Kakashi, they’d probably start out a bit late anyway. At least she’d had time to change into more suitable travel attire.

When they finally headed out, predictably she was the one with the smallest pack, containing only some spare senbon and kunai, a single change of clothing, a med kit, and the valued storage scroll with the rest of her weapons and camping gear. Her father’s precious wakizashi was secured prominently at her hip. Naruto still insisted on bringing too much along with him, and Sasuke looked to have not actually utilized scrolls at all either. At some point she’d have to corner him and talk to him about buying his own storage seals - he probably had the funds for it, as the last Uchiha. At least Kakashi-sensei had a pack too, indicating that he carried at least some things… but the monstrosity on their client’s back was bigger than all of theirs combined. What did civilians  _ carry _ in all of that?

“All right!” As Naruto celebrated and showed his excitement about the mission, the grumpy old drunk complained yet again. This would be their longest trip out yet, having stayed fairly close during all of their D Rank missions, even the babysitting gig, and she was a little excited too. Her father’s weapon at her side, made it seem all the more important a mission.

She let Kakashi handle Naruto’s latest tantrum, just happy to see that he had, indeed, changed into black pants that they’d gotten at the second-hand stall. His orange jacket was still on, but maybe he’d eventually be a little less likely to be seen from the next country. She sighed, and moved to trail after the old drunk, eyes scanning the forest casually. They were still fairly close to the village, so the likelihood of any bandits on the road was low.

“Ne… Tazuna-san?” she asked eventually, bored, and watched Naruto perk up as she spoke. Hopefully it wouldn’t get him too excited or loud again… they’d traveled far enough that they’d need to camp soon, and bandits and thugs were a likelier prospect now. Him being loud could attract them to the group. “Your country is the Land of Waves, right?” He only grunted an affirmative. “Kakashi-sensei, I don’t know of a ninja village there. Is it just not one we’d learned about?”

“No, there aren’t Ninjas in the Land of the Waves… On a small island like the Land of the Waves, where it is difficult to be influenced by other nations, there is no need for a Shinobi village. The closest village, other than ours, would be Kiri… but it’s not on the direct travel path, so it doesn’t get visited or harassed usually.” Kakashi’s tone was droll, and he patted her head as he moved to the head of the group. She saw him glance quickly at Tazuna, who looked moody, but wasn’t sure why. “Well, no need to worry. There are no ninja battles in a C rank mission.”

She glared only momentarily at his back before huffing and continuing forward as well, remembering their first survival test with him. “Stupid genjutsu.” It was a grumble, but it was just loud enough for Tazuna to hear and give her a strange look. He actually screamed, like a little girl, as seconds later two strange men attacked Kakashi with chain weapons.

Sakura’s eyes went wide, and she whipped out her wakizashi, staring at the enemies that had leapt at them. There was a symbol on the foreheads of their odd masks. Ninja… Kakashi had just said… but then he… She flinched as the pair went for Naruto next. Sasuke was the only one of them that managed to keep his head, leaping to quickly pin the chain that connected the pair with a shuriken and kunai combo. Was Sasuke moving faster?

Shaking off her paralysis she slid in front of Tazuna. “Stay behind me.” It came out as a trembling hiss, but she held the short sword in both hands, ready to defend him. With the reach of the enemy, the sword was her only hope in actually protecting the old man, since she couldn’t take the fight into the trees where she’d have cover. Just as the chain released and one of them darted directly for Tazuna, she set for one of her father’s moves, hoping that she had the speed to pull it off.

Kakashi appeared a split second after Sasuke did, though, the both of them creating a barrier from the enemy reaching her, Kakashi landing with both ninja held in locks under his arms. She breathed out a deep sigh, relaxing slightly. Bastard sensei, freaking them out like that. He really did have a dark sense of humor. “Yo.” And he was  _ not _ cool, to just pose there with the enemies unconscious in his grip, greeting them casually. Bastard.

Her eyes flicked over to where they’d thought they saw his body land in pieces on the ground, and noted the wood just as Naruto mumbled something about substitution. Really she should have expected that, all three of them should have. He was always using that to screw with them whenever they thought they might have caught him in a trap or hold. She really needed to practice that move, especially after all of their control and stamina training with tree-climbing.

“Naruto. Sorry I didn’t come to help you sooner.” He looked at the blond boy, and she felt an almost sense of disappointment and pity in the one-eyed gaze. “I got you hurt. I didn’t think you’d be incapable of moving…” Sakura’s eyes zeroed in on Naruto’s hand, bleeding sluggishly from a scratch. She completely ignored the breath of relief behind her from Tazuna. “Anyhow, let me just say, good job Sasuke. You too Sakura.” The eye levelled on both of them was assessing, almost proud. She glared back, and moved to go check the blonde boy as Kakashi pretended to be cool.

“Yo… are you hurt… scaredy cat?” Sasuke’s words were cruel, and Sakura rolled her eyes at the Uchiha as she reached for the blonde’s hand to look at it. She wasn’t anything close to a medical nin, but she could probably bandage it well enough. At least she’d brought her med kid, and it would be easy enough to get it bandaged.

“Naruto!” She was carefully inspecting the wound for any dirt or debris before reaching for the first aid kit in her pack, and huffed at Kakashi’s loud call and the way it made the boy jerk slightly. “These guys have poison on their claws. You need to take out the poison quickly. You have to open the wound and drain the poisoned blood. Don’t move so much. The poison will spread.”

Sakura’s eyes widened, and she glared for good measure at the unconscious nin still in Kakashi’s grip. Naruto was trembling, staring at his hand as she reached for her kit still, knowing that there would be a good deal more blood if they actually did a drain. They’d probably have to have Kakashi do it, lest one of them hurt Naruto more or not actually get enough.

“By the way, Tazuna-san.” Kakashi’s voice drifted to her as she pulled the gauze and antiseptic from her bag. “I have something to talk to you about.”

Naruto clenched his jaw, and before she could stop him, jabbed a kunai directly into the wound on his hand, probably nearly severing tendons in the process. Idiot! Jerking forward, she grabbed his wrist to keep him from trying it again. “Baka! Not like that!” She snapped, then smacked him over the head. “You’ll permanently damage your hand or bleed out!” She hissed, trying to bandage around it as Kakashi watched on in a measure of surprise.

“Got it out, didn’t it?” Naruto grumped, then held up the only partially bandaged hand as a symbol to the other two members of their team. “I’ll… I’ll never freeze again. Believe it.”

“We believe it, Naruto-baka, now let me finish cleaning the wound! Damnit you’ll be lucky if you can move your fingers again!” She snapped, squeezing first water to wash the blood and poison away, and then antiseptic to clean it. He hissed and whined while she worked, but accepted her treatment and the bandage nevertheless. She only barely paid attention to the conversation going on nearby, Kakashi revealing the mistake the two mist ninja had made, the real story from Tazuna. She was almost ready to insist on going back to the village, as Kakashi suggested. Naruto probably needed real medical attention for his hand, and this was definitely something beyond their skill level. While she was eager to complete a real C rank, she didn’t honestly think they were ready to take down the kind of ninja that would be hired for sabotage and assassination.

She refrained from comment when a combination of Naruto’s whining and Sasuke brooding about going back somehow convinced Kakashi to continue on. With the way that Naruto was gesturing about, he probably hadn’t done real damage to his hand… but she knew that they were in over their heads. At least they had Kakashi around to pull their fat out of the fryer if things got too bad.

* * *

She felt both suspicious and lucky that they hadn’t encountered any other ninja again. It had taken days to reach their ferry passage to the Land of Waves, which apparently was not fond of unapproved traffic in and out. The excessive fog only made things creepier, and she carefully calculated the range of weapons she had at hand. Their last enemies had apparently appeared out of a  _ puddle of water _ and they were currently on a freaking sea! How could she not be paranoid about that?

“Tazuna-san… I want to ask you something before we arrive at the pier.” Kakashi murmured, and Sakura settled her sword across her lap, listening intently. “The identity of your assailants, and the reason why they are after you. If you don’t tell us, our mission may end when you make landfall.” Sakura privately wondered why he hadn’t insisted on the information before, considering that they had already escorted the old drunk the entire way back to his village.

It was a sad and terrible story, of the corrupt corporation owner and violence. She was able to understand quite well the man’s motivation, and his apparent crutch of alcohol - where he kept it all she didn’t know, as he had seemed to drink more than could be contained even in his oversized backpack. Nevertheless, the pathetic bid for sympathy, using his grandchild and daughter, made Sakura want to punch him.

“Well… it appears we have no choice.” Kakashi shrugged, and she felt like punching him too. No way he fell for that, so she guessed that he had some secondary motivation. Possibly just taking out this Gato character before he became powerful enough to threaten the Fire country. “Let’s continue as his bodyguards.” The solemn air that followed the conversation, and them making land, probably had to do with everyone knowing that the grumpy old drunk got away with pulling one over on them. It was not going to look good on Konoha if word got out about this. Sakura pouted the majority of the walk to the man’s home, hand on her wakizashi, partially hoping for an opponent just so she could work through some of her irritation.

The old man’s daughter was welcoming, overly so, when they arrived. She bowed and smiled, insisting that the team stay in the lake house with them and allow her to provide their meals. As Kakashi was doing a perimeter check, it allowed Sakura a moment of bitter snark where he couldn’t overhear. Turning just to the side so that only Naruto could hear, she snorted. “Right. Free bed and board to make up for the old drunk lying.” She huffed, and Naruto giggled slightly. Sakura eyed the woman petulantly and spoke more loudly. “I’ll set up my bed roll outside of his door, so that’s guarded between rotations.”

“R- rotations?” The woman blinked, eyes wide and staring at her. “But didn’t you defeat those two horrible men that were hunting him?”

“That doesn’t guarantee there aren’t more.” Sasuke growled, pushing forward and eyeing Sakura suspiciously. “I’ll set up under his window then.”

“Why else would we still be here?” Sakura huffed, still in a sour mood, and moving toward the old man’s room.

“Ne, ne, Sakura-chan!” Naruto ran after her, bowing only briefly to the woman that had let them in. “Where should I sleep?!”

“You sleep like a log, Naruto-kun. You might as well sleep against the door on the other side so that it’ll wake you up when it opens against you.” Sakura smirked at him, and he promptly began whining loudly.

“You three seem lively.” Kakashi offered, popping up out of nowhere and startling a shriek out of the dark-haired daughter of their drunkard client. “My apologies, miss. All of you seem lively, considering that if that man discovers that chunin did not work, he will likely send a jounin level ninja next time.”

Sakura glowered at him, and Sasuke only scoffed. Naruto, true to form, began to laugh boisterously, holding out his bandaged hand proudly as if it were some kind of symbol. “Me? Scared! I vowed on my blood that I would never freeze again! It’s finally getting interesting, dattebayo!”

Kakashi scoffed lightly, his one-eyed gaze almost fond, and Sakura smirked a little. She knew that the blonde was simply eager to prove himself after the previous mishap. If Kakashi was right, they had to be careful, though. She had no illusions as to the dangers of their situation. If this Gato was as ruthless as old Tazuna claimed he was, he would stop at nothing to guarantee that his power was not thwarted. A shipping mongol like that would have plenty of funds to hire whatever level of ninja he felt necessary… and they only had a handful of partially trained genin and a lazy jounin in a mask.

“It’s not interesting at all…” The moody, high-pitched voice of a child made Sakura twitch and sneer. They all turned to look at the short kid in overalls that was probably the grandson the old man had whined and tried to use as a manipulation point for them. Sakura quirked a brow at the kid, and she saw the irritated look on Sasuke’s face mirroring her opinion there.

“Hey Inari! Where’ve you been?!” Tazuna immediately brightened, coming back out of his room from upstairs, his alcohol pinked cheeks stretching to a huge smile as he held his arms out to the child. Sakura leaned against the wall, observing the family dynamics and vaguely reminiscing about her own grandfather. He and mama tended to chide her about being a good civilian girl, but she had always suspected the old man was secretly proud of her stubbornness.

“Welcome back, jiichan!” The little boy leaped into Tazuna’s arms, and Sakura couldn’t help a slight smile. The kid didn’t seem all that polite, but at least he loved his grandfather. It was the nicest they’d seen the manipulative old bastard since meeting him too.

“Inari, what kind of greeting is that?” His mother stomped up to him, hands on her hips, and Sakura hid a laugh behind her hand. “These are the ninja that escorted your jiichan!” As the old man continued hugging the boy and petting his head despite the woman berating the kid, he turned and stared at team seven contemplatively.

“ Kāchan, these guys are gonna die. There’s no way they can face Gato and win.” The kid said, stepping away from his grandfather and facing his mother without a hint of fear or remorse. Sakura’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, and she watched Kakashi start to completely ignore them again and the woman flush with embarrassment.

“Say what you little brat!” Naruto jumped up, flailing. “Now listen up! I’m a superhero who’s gonna become an awesome ninja named Hokage in the future! I don’t care if it’s Gato or whatever, I’m not gonna lose to those guys! Dattebayo!”

Sasuke scoffed slightly at all of them, walking away before he could either get frustrated with the kid, or have to listen to more of Naruto’s boasting.

“Che! A hero! That’s ridiculous! There’s no such thing!” Inari sneered, glaring up at Naruto as if he’d been personally insulted. “If you don’t want to die, you’d better hurry up and go home…” Sakura reached out with a foot and tripped Naruto before he could pounce on the kid. Even if the boy was a bit of a brat, they couldn’t just pummel him into submission. She watched the boy trudge away, brooding as thoroughly as the Uchiha was prone to do, and shook her head at her blonde teammate when he moved to go talk sense into the boy.

“Not now, Naruto.” She murmured softly. “We have to settle in.”

* * *

They’d escorted Tazuna to his bridge and back, allowing him to make contact with his various crew members before making an early end and returning to the house. Kakashi intended to do some reconnaissance in the area, figuring out if and where Gato’s moles or thugs would be, and see if there were further signs of ninja prowling about. Once he had more information, he would let Tazuna know the guard schedule and plan. Kakashi had instructed that they should train while he was away, but keep close to the house just in case. It meant that they had an afternoon to occupy themselves.

He could have at least brought them along to teach them what he was doing.

Sakura tightened her shin wraps and glanced cautiously over at the boys. Naruto had seemed subdued ever since the attack from those other ninja. The most lively he’d been had been when he was excitedly picking somewhere to sleep and bickering with the kid. She had the feeling that he was struggling with the realities of being real ninja. In the village, he would be degraded and mocked, and in training he could get beaten up… but out here, other ninja would try to kill him, and he would do the same. Even knowing that in his mind, he'd not accepted it until they'd been attacked.

She had been afraid too, but her situation was different. While the Academy had prepared them with technique and tactics, her father had gone further. From the day she'd entered the Academy, determined to become a ninja, her father had made no effort to spare her the realities of a fighter’s life. Sakura checked the edge of her wakizashi, those thoughts leading her to wondering when the blade would first taste blood.

“You're quiet, Sakura-chan.” The comment brought her gaze up quickly, and she hazarded a smile at the blonde boy.

“Just thinking. How's your hand?” The question made him scowl, but it kept him from being overly concerned with her. Sakura glared at the amused scoff that Sasuke offered, slipping the blade into its sheath with a light click. “You're probably almost healed by now.”

“Yeah… will you work with me on Chakra control, Sakura-chan-sensei?” He frowned down at the bandage still wrapping his hand, and she smiled sadly. Ever since she'd started teaching him storage seals on their first day as a team, he tended to ask that when he was down. It hadn't taken long for her to notice the habit. Kakashi wasn't due back for another few hours at least, so they had time.

“Sure… but I'm going to make you practice on trees with me.” She slid out the door, not bothering to call a goodbye to the drunk’s daughter or bratty grandson. They'd still be close enough should aid be needed, and had been told to train anyway. Naruto trotted quickly after her, and Sakura smirked at him. “Three clones today. One on meditation and two sparring. You follow me to a branch.”

“Hai, Sakura-chan-sensei!” He smiled brightly, then quickly duplicated to get to the training. Though his clones argued a little at the more boring tasks, he only held up the bandaged hand to show it to them, and all three stared down at their own. “Become the best. We're never freezing again, right?”

“Right!”

“Sakura-chan-sensei didn't freeze. We have to catch up to her.” he then told them, much to her surprise. “She says control is important.”

“RIGHT!”

“You two spar. You meditate.” He then instructed again, and a much more reluctant agreement came this time, but it came.

Sakura smiled softly to herself as Naruto darted up the tree trunk to join her. “It's okay to be scared, Naruto. I was too.”

“Yeah, but you didn't freeze.” He snapped a twig off, refusing to meet her eyes. “What if… what if you'd gotten hurt? I just  _ stood _ there.”

“Then it would have been my own fault for not training hard enough. We're responsible for watching out for each other, as a team… but we're also responsible for ourselves.” She lightly tapped his shoulder with her fist. “You're not my babysitter.”

“No, we're a team.” Naruto agreed.

“So use that next time. If I do get hurt, help me… or avenge me. You protected and helped Iruka-sensei, didn't you? You'll be fine.” He sighed and stared forlornly at her. “One team, Naruto.”

“One heart.” He nodded, fire lighting in his blue eyes. “Help me catch up to you, Sakura-chan-sensei.”

“Good! Now close your eyes.” she poked him on his hitai-ate, and he did so, smiling. She wondered when he would realize that she was still trying to catch up to  _ him _ . “Where is your chakra flow going?”

“Most of it is centered, and some is in my feet… but I think I feel it leaking around.” He said after a moment, scrunching his face in concentration. She already knew he was trying to lock that down, and watched for him starting to slip from the branch. “I think it's just wispy.”

“Okay, now build up the chakra you would need for Henge no jutsu. Only enough for a Henge.” She crouched, watching his feet. “And watch your amount for balance. Don't blast off or fall.”

“Okay. When can I try a regular Bunshin again?” he wiggled a little, and she scowled at the start of fine cracks in the bark.

“When you can henge perfectly while on a tree without damaging it.” she said, then flicked his knee. “And you're damaging it now. Pull some back from your feet.”

“Hai.” He concentrated harder, and she made it a point to poke his knee any time she noticed a waver in his chakra creating cracks in the bark or starting to slip. It was quite the effort for her, maintaining her own balance of chakra as she did so. “Sakura-chan-sensei…” She looked up at him, saw his foot slide out of the corner of her eye, and flicked his leg once more. “Can you Henge perfectly while doing this yet?”

“Probably not.” She admitted, turning to look at his foot placement again since he hadn’t opened his eyes to watch her. “I haven’t tried… but Henge is your best of the three  _ simple _ jutsu we learned at Academy. Bunshin was mine. Maybe after you’ve worked for a while I’ll try it and you can catch me when I fall.” Naruto abruptly began laughing and slipped completely off of the side of the tree, tumbling to the ground. Sakura tilted her head, looking down at him with a smirk, then moved to go sit on a branch a bit higher. With a bit of work, she got a rope tied off, and waited for him to join her up there. “Tie this around you so that if you fall from this height it won’t be as bad… I want to run up and down for a while.”

The two clones that had been sparring had stopped to laugh at the original for falling, but by the time she’d jogged back down the tree trunk, they were sparring again. Turning, Sakura began running, making sure to scale a different side of the tree than where Naruto was working. She hadn’t told him  _ why _ she always insisted on him making clones before working on his control… but she suspected it would eventually come up. She’d also, eventually, have to let him do control practice like this without the benefit of his chakra being split already.

Sakura nearly fell, startled, as she ran up again. Naruto had used Henge, but he put a huge gouge in the side of the tree, and was tangled in the branches above instead of hanging from the rope. A very poor imitation of Iruka stared back at her, his hair still blonde, but held back in Iruka’s signature style, and blue eyes staring at her out of a face that was an odd mixture of the two of them.

“Ha ha.” He grumbled, popping back to his own appearance and struggling to disengage himself from the branches. After some effort, Naruto managed to free himself, and once he was also untied from the rope, he ran back down to the ground level. “Okay, now it’s your turn, Sakura-chan!”

She chuckled a little to herself, walking around to the branch and carefully tying herself as well. She stood instead on the underside of the branch, further away from where it was tied so that she didn’t risk damaging the rope, and once she was sure that Naruto and his clones were in place, closed her eyes and concentrated. Checking the flow of chakra to her feet, she nodded, then collected more, splitting how it was moving. She felt herself stick harder, then loosen, and concentrated more on the distribution that it should have been. After a good ten minutes of carefully monitoring where her chakra was collecting and flowing, she gave it a try.

Three bunshin popped into existence next to her, and all four of them fell promptly as she lost control of her chakra hold. She’d cut everything off once she completed the bunshin, not just the clone jutsu. The rope caught her, quite painfully, but the bunshin all continued their fall, poofing into smoke dramatically as they landed. Naruto was rolling on the ground, laughing, and she hung there, sighing. She’d performed bunshin successfully, though, and had managed to stay in place until her mistake at the end. At least she had the rope to catch her, even if it was digging into her stomach as she hung there. Twisting to look up, she was satisfied that she hadn’t damaged the tree either. Wriggling further, she managed to catch hold of the rope and began pulling herself up.

“Okay, Naruto-kun, you got to laugh at me. Back to work. I want to try something else for myself this time.” She writhed onto the branch and untied herself, reaching over to pluck a leaf to use. He eventually met her on the branch, still giggling, and she shook her head at him. Maybe he’d stop calling her sensei now. It was embarrassing.

Kakashi returned to see them practicing in a similar manner. Naruto’s clones had eventually dispelled, and he was dirty and panting from the constant efforts at concentration. His henge was getting much better, and the damage or how quickly he fell was reducing as he went along, but he still wasn’t quite to the level of control she’d assigned him. Sakura had been practicing her wakizashi katas with the leaf chakra-glued to her forehead, the same way they’d practiced chakra use and concentration when at the Academy. It was the simplest form of constant control that she could do while still moving freely around. She’d been doing sword katas as long as she’d been in the Academy, longer than she had for the jutsus or even the chakra control exercise. If she could do anything with ease, it would be that. She’d even advanced up the tree a few times, holding the leaf in place on her head and slicing through her careful steps. Naruto had paused to cheer her on again then.

As their sensei walked up, watching them both curiously, Sakrua let the leaf fall discreetly away while facing away from him, and smoothly slid her sword back into its sheath. “It’s good to see you two hard at work.” The casual, lazy comment made her stare at him blankly, and he made an obvious show of looking elsewhere. “Where’s Sasuke-kun?”

“I dunno. Probably somewhere being a teme.” Naruto growled, untying himself and jumping down easily. Belatedly he realized that he still had his most recent, not truly successful, henge of Iruka on. Quickly, blushing, he poofed back to his own appearance, and elbowed Sakura for the smirk she was giving him.

Kakashi continued standing there, looking at them blandly for a moment, but eventually seemed to decide that they didn’t actually know where their teammate was. Scratching the back of his head, he glanced out at the water, avoiding their eyes. “Erm… good job training. It… it takes a while to… master tree-climbing… I guess?”

“I already know how!!!” Naruto shouted at him, immediately irate, and started ranting that he could tree-climb just fine when Kakashi looked curiously at the rope as an example. Sakura shook her head, ignoring the energetic blonde as they walked back toward the house.

The scene that both of the boys made at dinner was... disturbing to say the least, and Sakura had to hit Naruto halfway through as he apparently forgot all of the table manners she’d forced into his head over the past couple of weeks. The blonde at least apologized to Tazuna and his family after she did so, but they were still packing food away like they were going to starve otherwise. She didn’t fully understand what got into them, instead simply attempting to make sure that she ate enough.

Naruto valiantly held back a burp so that it wouldn’t be too obvious, and Sakura sighed at the effort he made for that. Both of the boys were painfully over-full from how they’d stuffed themselves, and she was simply attempting to enjoy the after-dinner tea that had been provided. As the blonde boy tried to stretch and walk some of his gorged state off, he took notice of a picture hanging from the wall. Sakura had noted it as they sat down - the family didn’t have many pictures or decorations up after all - but seeing that it had someone ripped from it she’d chosen not to comment. “Hey… what’s this picture? Inari kept staring at it, and it’s ripped or something. Did something happen to it while we were training?”

Sakura winced as Inari stormed out in a dramatic fit with Tsunami, the old man’s daughter, chasing after him. The kid was probably freaking out somewhere, since apparently it was some sort of sore subject. She sat there, nursing her tea, as Tazuna told them the tale of Inari’s father, Kaiza. It made her stomach feel like it was filled with ice, and her throat closed painfully. Much though she was already becoming intimately aware of how poorly Gato treated the people he tried to control, the bond Inari had formed with that fisherman, and the torture he’d had to endure, made things a bit more intimate for her. Glancing at the picture, and then at her team, she set her tea down and contemplated their mission silently. It seemed to have taken on a new light.

* * *

Sakura let the leaf drop from her forehead, bisecting it neatly with a single slash, and turned to stare up at the moon. Technically, it wasn’t her turn on watch for another two hours, Sasuke should be on now… why had Kakashi followed her out? She stood there, silently, sword relaxed in her hand, while she waited for the man to approach. “Sakura-chan.” His tone was casual, as ever, and she heard him drop to the grass behind her from one of the trees. “You should be sleeping.”

“I’m fine.” She said, and turned to pick another leaf, ready to return to her training. “I’m busy.”

“Tomorrow we’ll begin to cycle protection shifts. One of you here, the other two with Tazuna-san at the bridge. I’ll continue looking for other ninja in the area.” He told her, as if the information would change what she was doing. “You’ll be the first to stay behind to protect Inari-kun and Tsunami-san.” She scoffed, glaring down at the leaf in her hand. “Were you not moved by their story, Sakura-chan? Gato could target them too. I expected, of all of you, that you would be the one to realize that, and to care.”

He obviously didn’t know Naruto very well then. She glared at him for a moment, then turned again to stare up at the moon silently. Let the lazy bastard think what he wanted. Of course she cared… but leaving her behind to babysit the brat and the woman wouldn’t be much help. Tazuna was the target… and Gato was the problem. They should probably bring the fight to him and eliminate whatever plans the bastard was trying to put into play. The more time they gave him, the more time he had to hire more ninja. After letting Kakashi stew in the silence of knowing she wouldn’t answer him, she finally spoke. “Kakashi-sensei… how old were you when you took your first blood?”

The jounin was silent for a long time, possibly in surprise or thought. She didn’t turn to look at him and find out. At first she thought that he wasn’t going to answer. “Again you prove to be much more intelligent and mature than your teammates, Sakura-chan,” he said somberly, approaching to rest a hand delicately on her head. She begrudgingly let him do so, hoping for an answer. “I was a little younger than you. Eight I think.” She hummed quietly to make it clear she’d heard him. Eight. That was more than a ‘little’ younger, that was insane. “You’ve… known… for a long time what the darker side of being a ninja is… haven’t you?”

“My father was a kenshi,” she stated stubbornly, clenching the wakizashi in her hand, and he hummed back at her in understanding. “There is no honor in murder, Kakashi-sensei… but there is honor in what it can accomplish, sometimes.” The hand on her head stiffened, and she smirked wryly. “If you kill Gato, it is still murder… but is it not honorable for him to be stopped?” Kakashi hummed at her again, and then solemnly told her to go sleep. She wondered if he had planned to attack the man himself, or if he’d intended to leave the Land of Wave as it was when the bridge had been finished. In defiance of his response, Sakura held the leaf on her forehead all the way back to her bedroll.

* * *

They had been doing their rotations for several days, and she had utilized the time at the house with Tsunami and Inari to train herself further, and ignored the strange looks that walking around with a leaf on her head at the bridge and in town garnered. She had finally gotten the trick down of splitting her chakra concentration and use, and was able to use jutsus freely while tree-climbing or vertical-walking on surfaces. Naruto wasn’t having quite the same luck, but he seemed as dedicated to learning it as he had to the storage seals and tree-climbing. The Uchiha had even, after their round together at the bridge with Tazuna, been contemplating his own leaf when he felt none of them were watching.

As she and Naruto met up at the center of the bridge, where Tazuna was working, she signalled a pause to their rounds, noticing one of the workers approaching with a guilty expression. Though he was apparently only trying the leaf exercise while on duty at the bridge, having seen what progress she’d made, and intending to continue with the rope-assisted training once back near the house, Naruto was diligently keeping various small objects stuck to his forehead. He’d already lost the leaf that he brought with him, and had apparently found a spare bit of paper to use… so he looked even more ridiculous than she had as they waited, watching the worker carefully.

“Watch his hands and face, I’ll keep an eye on his body language and foot movements.” She slid a fraction closer, circling to have a better angle should the worker prove violent.

“I don’t think his own guys would…” Naruto began, but she shook her head.

“I’d hope not, but you’ve seen that the people here aren’t the bravest… and money can make people do stupid things when they’re desperate.” She whispered, keeping her voice low and a hand ready to draw her sword. She seriously doubted that any of Tazuna’s workers would be so dishonorable or desperate as to try to kill or harm the old drunk for Gato’s favor - they seemed oddly fond of the old bastard - but even in a mission like this one, she would take her duties seriously. It turned out that the tired and guilty looking man was only requesting to be removed from the work team, fearing whatever ramifications Gato might have should they continue their defiance.

Naruto looked a bit heartbroken as the bridge work was finished early for the day and they went into ‘town’ to pick up supplies for that evening’s dinner. Tazuna had dragged her along with him on a similar errand the day before, with Sasuke, but it looked like her blonde teammate had not been subjected to it the first day. The scrap of paper Naruto had been diligently holding to his forehead over the hitai-ate leaf symbol dropped away, and she let out a sigh. “We’ll stand guard outside, jiisan.” Sakura huffed, pulling Naruto to stand with her instead of following the old man into the shop. “Try not to look so devastated, Naruto-kun. They’ll appreciate your concern, and especially your help, but no one likes to be pitied.”

“But… what can we do?” He whimpered, and she reached casually to take his hand in support. The bright blush that resulted was sweet, but expected. He usually got awkward when she was the one to initiate a hug or hold his hand in support, rare as it was. “I…”

“We protect the old drunk while he finishes his bridge… and we hope that Kakashi-sensei is going to do something about Gato while we’re here.” She paused, releasing his hand and patting his shoulder as she looked around. “If we’re attacked, we defend ourselves and Tazuna… and if we can, we keep them from hurting the building crew or sabotaging the bridge.”

Naruto was very quiet for a moment, blue eyes tracing the staggering path of a child beggar wandering the streets. Sakura pushed away the idle curiosity of if he’d ever had to do that. It seemed like the Hokage and village had provided for the boy for the most part, but having seen how he reacted to some things, sometimes she wondered. “When the orphanage kicked me out, I didn’t have somewhere to stay for a while.” He whispered, still staring at the child, and she winced at the answer to her unvoiced question. “I was… seven, I think. It was only a month before Momo and the girls at the house took me in, but…”

“But you remember what it’s like.” She finished for him, and he nodded, still watching the child in a slightly haunted fashion. “What happened?”

“I thought that if I became a ninja, I could find somewhere to live… so when I tried to join the academy, and they discovered I was sleeping in the dressing room at Momo’s bar… Hokage-jiji got the apartment for me.” He blinked away tears and smiled bravely at her, and Sakura nodded. “Sorry, Sakura-chan.”

“Don’t apologize for telling me that.” She insisted, then nodded at where Tazuna was coming back out. “I can’t fully understand, because it didn’t happen to me, but I can try. You didn’t deserve that, Naruto-kun.” He just smiled sheepishly at her. “We’re both fourteen right, a year older than the rest of the graduates?” He nodded. “That was around when I moved to Konoha with mama and papa.”

“Ne, I wonder what it would have been like if I ended up living with you instead?” He blurted curiously, staring up at the blue sky, and she smiled softly. He’d have driven her mother crazy, especially having another kid wanting to be a ninja in the house, but her parents would have loved a tiny rambunctious Naruto. She still thought they’d like him now, if not for him being on her genin team. Maybe she’d introduce him to her Papa.

“You’d have learned to throw out bad milk and eggs.” She commented with a shrug, and he whined at her being mean because he  _ tried _ to remember, but it never seemed important when he was training. Seeing the return of his energy was heartening, and Sakura smirked to herself as she continued watching their surroundings for threats. A young woman, perhaps little older than they were, offering a bundle of what looked to be medicinal herbs to one of the townsfolk sitting in the street nodded at them cordially. She seemed curious but not dedicated to stopping them for questions, and Sakura offered a tentative smile in return of the questioning glance. The previous day, when Tazuna had dragged them into town to display the sob story of the area yet again, they’d gotten similar curious looks.

* * *

Sakura watched in amusement as Naruto eagerly tied himself to a tree branch, not far from Tazuna’s home. He was determined to complete his henge perfectly while tree-perched, so that she would work with him on the regular bunshin. It wasn’t so much that he felt that he needed the minor bunshin technique, the Shadow Clones outperformed that jutsu without doubt, and took advantage of his greatest strength - pure, undeniable stamina and chakra reserves. She felt that, most likely, it was an achievement of determination. Of the Academy jutsu, Bunshin required the most precise control and the least amount of chakra. It had been his biggest problem when studying, and the reason he had failed his exam when trying to graduate. While Bunshin wouldn’t aid him in a fight, it was a symbol of his progress.

She hadn’t told him that with his control from the time they’d worked together, and his ability to do tree climbing, he could probably make at least two bunshin. The control for many more was possibly out of reach for now, but not the required three. With the control required for his current task, he’d possibly even reach four. He had only tried bunshin again under her guidance a few days before they learned tree-climbing, and hadn’t quite managed the trick of it. Looking up at where Naruto was determined to show her his progress, she smiled softly.

“Oh…”

Sakura tried not to flinch at the sudden noise, having not actually sensed the approach of someone. Turning, her eyes widened further at the dark-haired woman that had been handing out herbs in the town. Had they been followed all the way back? Her hand drifted toward her sword, and she slipped further back toward the tree, ready to defend them both if Naruto froze again. “Hey! What are you doing here, sis?!”

The blonde was staring from his perch in the tree, instead of untying himself to join them, and the young woman looked between them in alarm. “I’m sorry… I was searching for more herbs when I remembered that you had a bandage on your hand in town.” The words were hesitant and kind, gentle but surprised gaze turning up to Naruto where he was still perched above. “I… help to distribute salves and medicines to the people of Wave, and thought that I would offer my aid to the brave guards that have been protecting Tazuna-sama.”

As kind and guileless as the young woman seemed, Sakura wasn’t quite sure how much she trusted that. Naruto laughed in embarrassment, and untied himself quickly to jump down and join them. “Nah, I’m alright. I… it’s a symbol, for now. I’m alright.”

Sakura stood back, watching with slight suspicion, as the young woman tilted her head, looking Naruto over in slight, but obvious, concern. “Are you… a ninja?” she clutched her basket of herbs a little closer and glanced up at the tree, then at the hitai-ate on Naruto’s forehead. “What with the tree and the… headband…”

“Is that what I look like? Is it?!” He smiled proudly, reaching up and adjusting the metal band that displayed his village affiliation. “That’s right! I’m a ninja!”

“I was wondering if Tazuna-sama had hired ninja to help him protect the bridge.” The young woman glanced again at Sakura, and focused only briefly on her throat. “I had thought that… perhaps you were a young sword-for-hire too, but it didn’t make sense for him to have both. Will his bridge truly reach the mainland?”

“Yeah! The old man is working hard on it!” Naruto laughed, rubbing the back of his head. “And Sakura-chan is a Ninja too.”

“I see.” The young woman offered a gentle smile, and Sakura blushed slightly at that. “Why were you tied in a tree though?”

“I’m training! I want to get stronger!” Naruto pumped a fist in the air, and Sakura held back a laugh at his exuberance. She still wasn’t quite sure if she trusted this stranger that had just walked up on them randomly.

“Ah.” She stepped forward and offered a hand gently. “May I please at least look at your hand, to be sure myself that you are healed? We must support the ninja guarding Tazuna-sama.” Naruto blushed, but gradually unwound the bandage from his hand. While Sakura had expected it to be scabbed and beginning to scar, recovered well enough to be of no issue now, she hadn’t expected clean, smooth skin where he’d stabbed through with a kunai only days before. Odd. “Well you certainly aren’t injured here. You seem strong enough to me.”

“No, no! I want to get even stronger. This is a symbol that I  _ will _ get stronger!” He assured, very carefully and meticulously re-wrapping the bandage, just as Sakura had done the first day.

Sakura leaned back against the tree, watching them and content to let Naruto make his new friend. She’d be the one to guard his back, should this pretty young woman prove false. “What for?” The brunette pulled the basket of herbs in front of her, focusing politely on Naruto as the boy smiled ruefully.

“To become the best ninja in my village! I want to make everyone acknowledge my strength.” He squeezed his re-bandaged hand closed, staring at his fist determinedly, then looked again at the young woman. “And I have to prove something to my sensei. I’m worth all of the studying and training I have to do.”

Sakura flushed briefly again. She didn’t know if he was talking about her, or Kakashi, or even Iruka… but if it  _ was _ her, she was touched. The young woman, probably only a few years older than they were, reached down into her basket and felt the tender leaf of one of her medicinal herbs. “Is that for someone else’s sake, or for your own?” Naruto looked confused, which she expected. The boy needed less round-about questions, unless you were leading him somewhere. “I mean… do you have someone precious in your life…. When someone has something precious that they want to protect, that’s when they can truly become strong.”

Naruto stared, silent, and Sakura watched the tension of his shoulders carefully, and the movements and stiffness of the young woman. Caught off guard like this would be when Naruto was most vulnerable. The blonde seemed deep in thought, and after a long moment, he finally lifted his head, smiling broadly and proudly. “Yeah, I know that feeling well.”

“Then you’ll get strong.” The young woman said, smiling, and gathered a few of the herbs in her hand. “Here, for while you train. Crush them in hot water, and soak a clean rag in it. Wash your scrapes with it, and they’ll not get infected.” She smiled sweetly, offering the few sprigs of herb to him. “I hope we meet again somewhere.” He nodded, thanking her loudly as she turned to walk away. Sakura watched carefully, glad that the strange meeting hadn’t ended with a fight. Turning halfway through the trees and almost out of sight, the herbalist said one last thing. “Oh… and… I’m a man.”

They both watched, jaws dropped, as the young  _ man _ walked away again. He was prettier than most of the girls that Sakura knew!

* * *

Sakura pushed Naruto into the house for dinner, beaming proudly at his shaggy blonde head. He had not only succeeded in the Henge while standing on the tree, leaving only faint cracks behind, but he had also managed to do an Academy bunshin afterward. The mere  _ feel _ of him was different, the wild energy that usually radiated from him more refined. Looking over at where Sasuke looked just as worn down with practice, but satisfied, she had a feeling that the whole team had been training for self-betterment. If only Sasuke would acknowledge them enough that he’d train  _ with _ them, instead of just at the same times.

Dinner was pleasant, though Sakura was slightly concerned at the blossoming pinches of bruising that were barely beginning to show on Sasuke’s exposed skin. Though he wasn’t as rough as Naruto’s dirty appearance, from falling and the occasional trip, whatever he’d been doing had strained his muscles and cells enough that it was showing. Hopefully it would ease with rest. As they finished their meals, old Tazuna let out a satisfied sigh, smiling and pushing away his plate.

“The bridge is coming along very nicely, thanks to you guys!” Tazuna declared, and Sakura spared him an intrigued glance. “It shouldn’t take too long to finish it now.” Long enough, really, considering that he’d taken a half day, and they were losing the occasional builder. She wondered how long the old man could really last, and if the bridge would get finished, if his men were going to suddenly start quitting. Did that mean that Gato was starting to make threats again? What the hell was Kakashi doing all day? “But… I’ve really wanted to ask you for a long time now… why are you still here even though I lied about the mission?”

“To see what is right without doing it bespeaks an absence of courage.” Kakashi intoned calmly, hands folded. “Like master, like man. It’s a teaching of the late Hokage.”

Sakura looked pointedly at their silver-haired jounin. A part of her wanted to believe that he lived by that… but really,  _ did he _ ? They had no idea what Kakashi got up to all day, or if he was even helping. Looking at Naruto, passed out from the overload of food after an entire day of focus and concentration, she was grateful that he was asleep. Naruto did not hesitate in being a good person… but he had stopped, afraid, during the first attack, and she  _ knew _ it bothered him. He knew it was right to protect the client, and protect his team, but he did not… not because he didn’t want to, but because he had been very understandably afraid. After the day’s training successes he didn’t need that reminder.

She stood, bowing her head politely to Tsunami, before moving upstairs and away from the conversation. She was feeling oddly impulsive, and if she had to hear more of that from Kakashi she’d probably ask, very rudely, just what he was doing that he saw as being  _ so right _ , while the three of them rotated guard duty. Sakura moved through the hall and doorway, looking out of the window from Tazuna’s room, reaching up to trace the lines of her hitai-ate.

_ Do what you see to be right. Precious something, precious people, giving you strength… _ She stared out at the rising moon, clenching her hand around the metal of the hitai-ate and setting her jaw.  _ Why does being a ninja call to me? It feels right to me… but do I even have precious people? Does Kakashi-teme? _ She loved her papa, and her mama, and her papa’s teachings were precious to her. They helped her to be strong… but she didn’t know if that was what the strange herbalist had meant.  _ Naruto-kun. And Sasuke-teme and Kakashi-teme too. And my parents. They’re… the closest thing I have to something precious.  _ Sakura looked at the bridge that spanned much of the water visible from the window.  _ Would I have continued guarding Tazuna-jiji if Kakashi had left it up to me? _

She didn’t know the answer to that, and she didn’t know if it made her a coward or cruel.


	4. Chapter 4

Two days later, as she and Sasuke approached the end of the bridge with Tazuna, her hand immediately went to her wakizashi. Littering the work-area were the still bodies of the old drunk’s dwindling crew-members. On the nearest she saw a couple of senbon sticking from his neck and shoulder. It took precise control to kill with senbon - the enemy had to be at least a chunin, if not a jounin. Reaching behind her to grab Tazuna’s arm and swing him between her and Sasuke, she ignored his exclamation of reaction to both the scene and the manhandling.

“Sasuke, rearguard, we need to move.” She hissed, starting to pull the old man along with her, but an unnatural mist quickly overtook the bridge, and she stalled to prevent running into anything or stumbling across the enemy cluelessly. “Fuck.”

Sasuke quickly moved to take point while she crept closer to Tazuna’s side, glancing surreptitiously in every direction she could think of to try to anticipate the attack. Just as Sasuke’s form faded a bit too far into the mist, distorting his shape, something darted toward him, and there was a clash of weapons. Tazuna seemed torn between fear and shock as she continued cursing, pulling the man further away from the conflict and reaching to draw several of her senbon in hopes of being able to hide their trajectory in the mist.

The shadows of two figures clashing was not nearly enough detail for her to know what was happening, and Sakura growled in frustration. Where the hell was Kakashi while they fought… whatever this was?! Out of nowhere, the shimmer of something flying through the unnatural fog made her raise her sword to perry, but then Sasuke was there, knocking a handful of senbon away with his kunai and blasting out with a powerful Katon almost immediately after. The fire cleared a large area of the mist enough for her to see, but it was still a little hazy, and the moisture was thick outside of the immediate vicinity.

The width of the bridge away was a lithe figure, clad in hakama pants and a teal-green haori, with a shining mask on his face. The mask sent a shiver of fear down her spine. While she was under the impression that  _ Konoha _ ANBU utilized animal features to denote masks, that didn’t necessarily hold true for other villages… and it looked like the symbol at the top of the featureless mask was that of Kirigakure. Baring her teeth, she launched her senbon back at the figure, wondering where the hell Kakashi was, if they were stuck fighting what might be a foreign ANBU. The figure easily dodged her throw, but Sasuke darted forward again, and they both clashed, repeatedly, and frequently faster than she could discern detail from.

“What is that?” Tazuna asked fearfully behind her, and she huffed at him.

“A battle, keep quiet.” She snapped, and jerked in place when the figure clashed one last time with Sasuke before leaping away and forming a jutsu sign with a single hand… was that snake? The mist coalesced in a swirl around Sasuke, too near her and Tazuna, and Sakura knocked the old man violently away, leaping after him. Turning, she saw what seemed to be a dome of shimmering glass around her teammate.

Standing, Sakura could only watch as the enemy ninja  _ melted _ into the surface of one of the shimmering panes, his form looking like a mirror reflection staring out at Sasuke from within each of the panels. Leaping forward, she slashed repeatedly at one of the mirrors, feeling the freezing cold radiating off of it. Sparks of frost flew where her blade landed, like sleet, but the surface seemed mostly undamaged. Within, she heard the enemy intoning that there was no escaping, and that the ice mirrors were indestructible. Growling, she whipped out the handful of her few exploding tags, slapping all five onto the mirror and jumping away, dragging Tazuna with her.

“Uchiha!” She screamed, forming the seal and pushing chakra through to the tags. Sasuke turned, saw, and took a deep breath as quickly as he could, flashing through seals and blasting the same area she’d tagged with fire as it exploded. The eruption was massive, leaving traces of smoke behind and blowing away the last of the mist in their area of the bridge. Glancing up when the blast had cleared, though, showed that the ice mirror dome was still intact, though a single mirror seemed to have the slightest of cracks. “Sasuke-san!”

Her scream was pointless, especially as the enemy darted from within the mirror surfaces, faster than she could see. Blurred paths crisscrossed the inside of the dome, and an answering pained snarl from Sasuke warned her of his injury before the blurred streaks had faded. Senbon riddled Sasuke’s form, and Sakura snarled, nearly forgetting about their client. She couldn’t get in, though, and she was out of exploding tags.

The scuffle of someone nearby stumbling drew her attention briefly away from the dome and Sasuke’s plight, hoping that it was Naruto’s clumsy entrance. He always carried more tags than she did - he liked blowing things up and usually spent his mission pay on ramen and packs of exploding tags. Instead, she saw a rough trio of sword-toting thugs. Nearby, Tazuna gasped lightly, and that was all she needed to hear to know that they were the enemy nin’s backup.

Only one of the three seemed startled and distracted by the dome. The other two, when they came into the clearer area from the mist, saw her with Tazuna, and smiled cruelly. Sakura’s eyes narrowed, her grip on her wakizashi shifting slightly. There would be no opportunity to try to break into the dome with a set of swordsmen harassing her back. She’d need to take care of them first, and try to stall until Kakashi could arrive. Glancing only briefly to check that Tazuna was still behind her, Sakura shifted once more, then darted forward to meet the start of the charge that the other swordsmen were making.

_ Swooping Eagle. Diving strike. Mountain’s Fall. _ The names of the shifting kata strikes played through Sakura’s head as she sped through all three of the new enemy, first slicing across the torso of one, stabbing through the distracted man at the rear, then turning and leaping to come down in a hard slash across the last. Their swings and movements were clumsy and slow, not even fast or strong enough to have reacted within the delay each strike had caused. She had a feeling that they barely tracked her movement. The partial decapitation of her final strike sprayed blood everywhere, and the sight was a little nauseating. Sakura staggered a little, attempting to hold in her breakfast, and looked frantically around for other enemies.

The only other person still within sight was Tazuna, staring at her in horror, and she turned again to see Sasuke staggering inside of the dome. More needles stuck out from his body than when she’d turned away, and his movements were slowing. Flicking her sword to rid it of some of the blood and gore, Sakura leaped over the bodies and blood, aiming to get as little of it on her as possible. “Stay behind me.” She growled at the old man, turning again to look fearfully at the dome. She didn’t know any jutsu, not that could get Sasuke out. The Academy Three that were her only ninjutsu arsenal were virtually useless in a real fight. Even Sasuke’s Katon jutsu had done little to the mirrors.

Agonizing minutes passed of Sakura desperately attempting to figure out anything that could be done to break through the dome, occasionally launching forward to attack at one of the panels with her strongest maneuvers. Tazuna, more than once, attempted to say something to her, possibly attempt to convince her to escape while the enemy was busy… but even if Sasuke was a bigger pain to deal with than Kakashi - even if he refused to acknowledge them as real teammates or train with them - the boy was still part of her team, and whether she agreed with the rest of Kakashi’s teachings or not, Sakura took to heart the motto of  _ One team, One heart _ . She’d slay Tazuna herself before abandoning her team.

“Uchiha!” She screamed, and came down on one of the panels again, adding the force of chakra to her strike in the hopes that it would do  _ something _ to the stupid dome… but there was no obvious effect.

* * *

Sakura stared in awe as Naruto launched after the masked figure. When he’d arrived like some sort of hero in a play, and actually  _ entered the damn dome _ like an  _ idiot _ , she’d thought she was about to lose both of her teammates. It had sent her heart pounding harder than before, and she’d actually threatened to shut Tazuna up herself if he whined about running one more time. Then, Sasuke had fallen, protecting Naruto’s back of all things. They’d been trying to split the enemy nin’s attention by running in opposite directions and the masked ninja had gone for Naruto solely instead. When Sasuke had fallen, Naruto became… wild. Wild was the only way for her to describe it.

Chakra boiled off of her friend in malevolent waves, a single trail of it behind him not quite forming what may have been a tail. He’d screamed, sounding more like a roaring beast, flexing that angry,  _ visible _ chakra, and blasting apart the ice mirror dome. Sakura had had to tackle Tazuna to the ground with her to avoid being injured by debris. Now… now Naruto was chasing after the other ninja at speeds even Sasuke hadn’t managed, and catching up. Sakura felt that same fear clinging around her stomach… it was Naruto, it was  _ just _ Naruto, but the chakra felt like such strong, burning hatred that she couldn’t help it.

Just as Naruto was going for an enraged swipe at the other ninja’s face, what looked like claws tipping his fingers within that angry red chakra, the cracks of damage to the mask split… and Naruto stopped, less than a hair's breadth away. The… herbalist? Her jaw dropped, just slightly, and she clenched the sword in her hand. The fucking  _ herbalist _ had been a fucking  _ enemy ninja _ ?! The fear that had been coiling around her gut burned away with cold anger, and her jaw set. Had he been merely toying with them?

“Why?” Naruto’s broken voice was as painful as seeing Sasuke fall, and Sakura snarled, leaping away from where Tazuna still stood behind her, frozen in fear. “You were helping people in town!! Why are you doing this!”

“It is my duty.” The taller figure murmured, and faster than Sakura could get there, he struck out with a senbon, lodging it in Naruto’s neck. The blonde twitched, then went limp, falling to the ground, and Sakura hastily caught him instead of attacking, dropping her sword as she did so. The soft, doe eyes of the young man looked down at her, recognizing her from before it looked like. “I am sorry, kunoichi-san.”

Laughter interrupted whatever she might have responded with. Sakura and the other ninja turned to look in the direction it had come from, and her jaw set at the short, slimy looking man that stood at the forefront of a platoon worth of sword-carrying thugs. “Hahahaha!” Her lip lifted in a sneer as he laughed more. “It looks like you’re  _ finally _ proving worth the money that I’ve wasted on you, Haku!” The tiny sunglasses and suit only served to make the small man look ridiculous, and Sakura gently laid Naruto on the ground, reaching for her sword. If he kept the ninja distracted long enough, she might be able to use her last breath taking the bastard with her. “Knock the girl out… she looks like she might be worth something if kept subdued….”

He was laughing again, and her jaw set, blinking up at Haku’s stony expression before beginning to edge away. Instead, the air around her frosted, her skin shivering and immediately prickling with goosebumps. With a single sneer, Haku jerked a hand forward, and she saw the flash of cold on either side of her. Wincing, she only belatedly realized that she wasn’t hit, and turned to see a splash of angry, jagged ice-spikes built from narrow rows, splayed out and forward, striking through several of the swordsmen. The largest spike, easily big enough to skewer a horse, had gone straight through the short guy that she could only assume was Gato.

“Please excuse me, kunoichi-san.” The murmured words were polite, and in a flicker the other ninja was gone. Turning again, she saw the blur of his movement passing among the surviving, panicked swordsmen. Faster than she could have thought possible, they were all either dead or unconscious, and the young man flashed back at a respectful distance from both Tazuna and her. With a polite, if uncomfortable head bow, the young man gestured delicately to her teammates.

“What the  _ hell _ ?” She snapped, standing and clinging to her sword. She didn’t think she could match that speed, but she was going to sure as hell try if it let her take this guy out.

“My sincerest apologies, kunoichi-san.” He bowed gracefully again. “My name is Yuki Haku, a ninja of the Kiri resistance.” She growled at him. “My intention was not to cause as much distress as has been done. Your friends are alive.”

Her sword tip dropped slightly, and she paused where she had been gradually shifting closer. “Wh- what?” Her throat felt tight, and her vision a little blurry. Tazuna nearly got himself run through for suddenly grabbing her shoulders from behind, trying to hide behind her much smaller body. “Back the fuck off, you old drunk.”

“Don’t let him kill me.” Tazuna whimpered, and she shoved him further away.

“Please, your friends are not dead. I have put them into a forced sleep.” the ninja Haku explained, bowing his head again. “It is the same with the bridge crew. This was the easiest way to draw Gato out of his lair and away from where citizens may be injured in the fighting.” Sakura blinked away a few stray tears of hope, staring at him. “Please allow me to demonstrate. If the senbon are removed carefully, they will wake unharmed, if temporarily weak.”

She watched as he carefully knelt, telegraphing every movement, and slowly extracted the senbon from one of the bridge crewmen nearby. A tense minute passed before the man groaned and shifted slightly in place. “They’re… alive?” She whispered, swallowing.

“Hai.” Haku glanced around. “I have left most of Gato’s henchmen alive as well, so that they may be made to stand trial or serve with labor if necessary, but they will not wake until the senbon have been removed. It… does also appear that one of those you faced is still alive, if barely.”

Sakura startled a little bit, surprised that he had not only seen her fighting, but that one of the three was still alive. Edging closer to where she’d sliced through three swordsmen before, she saw the shallow stuttering breaths of the one she’d stabbed. Her wakizashi had gone in deep enough to cause serious damage, and he was likely arealy dying, but he hadn’t passed yet. Tazuna was staring in shock between her, the bodies on the ground, and the not-quite-enemy nin. “Are you a real healer, or are you only familiar with herbal remedies?” She asked, feeling queasy again. Haku shook his head sadly. Breathing deep, and ignoring the slight metallic taste at the back of her throat from being this close to the blood and gore, Sakura adjusted her grip on her blade.

_ Mercy’s swift release _ . The words of the first sword strike her father had taught her flickered through her mind. She hadn’t known that it was designed as a battlefield mercy strike at the time. She hadn’t even known what that was. Nevertheless, when she had learned the last of his katas, he had explained, very carefully, what Swift Release was supposed to be meant for… and why it was something she had to know. Her hips and legs set carefully, her back tensed, her shoulders relaxed, and with a twisting jump straight up, she came down in a strong, kneeling landing, sword removing the suffering man’s head as it came down in a slash. Kenshi were taught to take heads with any death, even a battlefield mercy strike, because of the strange healing capabilities of some ninja sects… and having seen what healing chakra could do for some people, she understood that. She wished, however, that she had it in her to ignore the teachings and give a simpler death.

“You strike cleanly.” Haku’s compliment was a little unnerving, but she tried to ignore that, finding something to clean her blade off with before sheathing it. Carefully, she knelt with Haku at Sasuke’s body, ignoring Tazuna now that the threats were, supposedly, gone. The old drunkard could either scramble his way home without them, or cower behind something for all she cared. Her team was more important than comforting him or escorting him at the moment. “Your… senbon… are weak, though. When… when you throw, hold like this.” With the senbon that he had very gently removed from Sasuke’s neck, he demonstrated the proper way to hold them. “The aim, and strength, is in the motion and in the fingertips. Balance there.”

Sakura didn’t know how she felt about a not-quite-enemy teaching her senbon tricks over the unconscious body of a teammate he’d used those very tricks on. Nevertheless, he did carefully extract every senbon stuck into the boy’s body, pressing and working around each puncture to assure the least damage possible. She watched him work silently for a moment, a hand on Sasuke’s shoulder.

“I understand that you will have to make a report. Please know that I do not want to make an enemy of the leaf - neither for myself, nor for my precious person and his leader.” Haku murmured quickly, pulling the last senbon from Sasuke’s body. “Yes, I was hired by Gato to assassinate Bridge Master Tazuna and sabotage his bridge… and the Kiri resistance needed the funding. However, Mistress Terumi also commanded that I was to evaluate the situation… and if I felt that Gato was a threat to the nation of Water, I was to remove the threat. We hold no current animosity or enmity with your village.”

“I see.” She huffed, then smiled down at where Sasuke groaned slightly and shifted where he slept. “They’ll be okay?” Haku nodded kindly. “Then I’ll make sure that your message is conveyed in my report. Please help Naruto next.” She paused. “I’ll make sure he knows too.”

“Thank-you, kunoichi-san.” The older boy smiled kindly at her, and she walked with him, still offering a cautious distance, as they moved to Naruto’s body. Absently, she saw Tazuna hiding partially behind one of the crates of building supplies. Manipulative damn coward.

“Sakura.” She offered, and he smiled slightly, obviously amused. “I guess my parents weren’t very creative.” His smile looked even more amused. “Haruno… Sakura. I am a genin of Konohagakura. The boy you just worked on was Sasuke, and this is Naruto, who you met in the trees with me.”

Naruto grunted, already hazily trying to wake up, once Haku had gotten the needle out, and the Kiri nin nodded gratefully. “I thank-you for understanding, Sakura-san. I must leave, now, to report to my superiors.”

She watched as he stood, then flickered away. Naruto groaned again, then squinted up at her, mostly awake. “Sakura-chan?” She smiled at him, brushing back messy blond hair. “What happened? The ninja!”

“It’s okay, Naruto. It’s over. I’ll explain once we get somewhere safe for you to rest.” She told him, helping him to try to stand. Even with his ridiculous stamina, he was still weak, and hand to hobble with an arm slung over her shoulders. Tazuna approached cautiously. “Can you help with Sasuke? I can’t carry them both.”

“Er… yeah.” The old man looked at her warily, then moved to go heave Sasuke up. The Uchiha still hadn’t fully woken, so Tazuna had to clumsily shift the boy into a piggyback position, and it was slow going to get back to the island. Naruto’s bleary staring at the ice spikes that still held up Gato and a few of his men, and the number of swordsmen littering the ground was almost amusing. Sakura just didn’t want to have to think about it.

When they had finally reached the very end of the bridge, where it started on Wave’s shore, all three of them stopped with wide eyes. The small area of sheer destruction was amazing. Scorch marks scuffed the ground and pillars, several areas were completely blasted, and in the middle of it all was a barely ruffled Kakashi with some other, tied-up nin. Unlike Haku the green-haired ninja, unconscious and tied with ninja wire, wore an Ame hitai-ate. Senbon were everywhere, glistening suspiciously, as if coated with poison, and an umbrella lay broken at the unconscious nin’s feet. Sakura vaguely remembered an old lesson on other villages’ favored weapons, and that Ame liked to use senbon-rain-umbrellas in battle. Wasn’t it usually against villages’ policies for a single client to hire more than one hidden village at the same time, though?

“Ma, sorry I’m late.” Kakashi’s casual greeting was almost expected, and she quirked an exhausted eyebrow at him. After the battle, and dragging Naruto across the whole of the bridge, she just wanted to sleep. Kakashi was idly dabbing a stained rag of something on a few scratches he’d gotten, possibly from the theoretically poisoned needles. “I saw Gato head that way with some swordsmen… I didn’t think they’d have caused that much trouble for you three.” He paused, and tilted his head. “Wasn’t Naruto supposed to be at the house today?”

“There was another Kiri ninja.” Sakura grumbled tiredly, helping Naruto limp around them in a wide circle, not even watching as Kakashi finally picked up the captured nin and flopped him over a shoulder. “Things got… complicated.” Kakashi hummed at her, and Sakura huffed at him, looking at the ninja pointedly. She didn’t know that they were in the business of taking captives or hostages.

“This also got… complicated.” Kakashi eye-smiled at her. “This is a missing nin of the Leaf.” Sakura snorted, and Naruto barked out a tired laugh. “How were things complicated for you?”

“The Kiri nin was ordered to double-cross Gato if he felt that the man posed a threat to Water, and expressed his apologies for getting Konoha involved.” She yawned, forcing herself and Naruto to keep up. “He used senbon to knock Sasuke and Naruto unconscious as they fought, and before he could get to me, Gato showed up. He killed Gato and some of the swordsmen, and knocked the rest out for either trial, labor, or execution.” Naruto’s loud exclamation of surprise when she said that was right in her ear, and made her wince enough that both of them stumbled. After a few moments of rearranging themselves, Sakura got him back over a shoulder and moving again. “He said that the effects of the senbon strikes he used would leave them weak for a little while though.” She paused, and watched his contemplative look. “Sensei… he said that he was of the Kiri  _ resistance _ .”

“Ah.” The one sound response was full of sudden understanding, and Sakura huffed in frustration when the man didn’t deign to explain anything. “I suspect that Gato was prepared to double-cross this Kiri friend of yours then, as this missing nin wears a different headband. I’ll need to return him to the village as soon as possible, and don’t have time to wait for Sasuke and Naruto to recover.” She huffed at him. “Tazuna-san… as we have now fulfilled our beyond-contractual duties to protect you, would you be courteous enough to allow my genin to recover in your home while I make the round trip with my prisoner?” His perky voice was grating, as was the mocking head tilt, but she was satisfied at Tazuna’s begrudging agreement. “Then it is settled. Sakura, I’ll leave you in charge of their care while I am gone.”

She turned her head to respond, Naruto already loudly exclaiming that he’d be fine, but Kakashi had already disappeared with the prisoner. Sakura grumbled irritably under her breath the rest of the way back to Tazuna’s house. Once she’d gotten a nap, she’d check Naruto’s recovery, and figure out some sort of watch schedule, since they were still outside of the village. Bastard Kakashi could have at least looked the boys over just in case. What did  _ she _ know about healing or field medicine?


	5. Omake 1: REPORT

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the mission report from their trip to Wave, and will incorporate a lot of previous chapter review. While it shows some of their personality and interactive development, it is fluff between chapters. Skip at your own choice.

Sakura looked curiously at the other ninja. Kakashi had asked for a summary of the mission while they traveled back to Konoha, and she had thought that was his lazy idea of a debriefing. Instead she and the others had been scheduled for an official debrief with what she could only assume was a member of the Intelligence Division. The man didn't look particularly intimidating, but he wasn't as gentle in appearance as some of the others she'd seen either. Mostly he looked like a soldier and a professional, which she could respect.

“You can call me Hayate-san, Sakura-chan. While we will officially file your written mission report, it is policy that missions get a personal debrief when they change rank in-field,” he told her calmly, looking neither comforting nor aggressive. At least she probably wasn't in trouble. “As it is also up to the discretion of a jounin team leader to continue a mission in-field when it shows to be a higher grade, you can also be sure that your team is not in trouble for the mission continuation.”

Sakura nodded, forcing herself to relax in her chair a little. “Yes, Hayate-san.”

“Good. I have a summary of events from Kakashi-san, and will prompt specific areas of review from you. If you believe that an area merits more attention than it has been given, or was skipped, please interject between questions.” He lifted a hastily scribbled paper. “Team 7 is listed as genin D-C rank, with the control grade of vertical surface traction. At what point did you know that the mission was not C rank?”

“When the two Kiri chunin attacked us. I think Kakashi called them The Demon Brothers.” She pursed her lips. “Kakashi allowed the brothers and our team to believe he had been killed in their ambush to verify their target. Tazuna admitted then that he had requested a C rank escort and guard because he and his country are too poor to afford B or A rank. Kakashi decided to move forward as Naruto had gotten the poison from his wound before it could progress, and none of us verbally objected.”

“How did Uzumaki Naruto become poisoned?” His eyebrow lifted just slightly at her careful phrasing of ‘verbal’ objection.

“The Demon Brothers had poison on their claw gauntlets, and he was scratched in the fight.” She shrugged, trying to downplay that particular aspect. It was odd that Naruto had healed so easily and so well, especially if there was poison on those claws instead of some far-fetched manipulation from Kakashi. She wasn’t sure if she would put it past the silver-haired bastard to toy with them by making them think they’d dealt with poison. “I am not trained for field medic work, but we had a first aid kit on hand, and cleaned and bandaged it there.”

“How did he extract the poison?” Hayate asked, making a small note.

“He stabbed the wound with a kunai to create a faster out-pour of blood. It was crude and dangerous, but Kakashi said it had worked, so we took his word for it. He didn’t manage to seriously damage himself in the process at least, but I think that was luck.” Sakura acknowledged with a nod. “We checked his healing over the course of that day and the next to watch for infection, and it seemed fine. Kakashi made us do full work-ups with the hospital once we got back, and he was cleared as fully healthy.” She paused and considered him for a moment. “It was my understanding from Kunoichi lessons that poison requires an antidote or anti-venom, and that bleeding a wound is ineffective, but we followed the direction of our jounin-sensei.”

“I see.  _ Usually _ that is correct, but sometimes chakra can make up for that when you have a lot of it.” The man shuffled papers to quickly glance over what was probably their medical workups. “And who did the field wrap and care? You implied that you aren’t trained for that.”

“I’m not. I did the wound care, though. There was cleaner and sanitizer in my kit, and I used an antibiotic paste from it as well. He made sure to hold still while I worked, so it wasn’t difficult.” She noted. “Kakashi was busy questioning the client at the time.”

“The kit was yours too? Did Kakashi have one on him?” The man asked, and Sakura shrugged. “It notes on Uzumaki’s medical workup that he’s still wearing the bandage even though he doesn’t need it. Do you know why?”

“Naruto got injured when he froze. He vowed on the injury and his kunai that he would never freeze again.” She smiled softly, remembering. “He didn’t freeze in the other fight, later, so I guess it was a worthwhile vow.”

“Were there any other problems on the road?”

“No. I’m unsure of if we were lucky, if they were cautious, or if Gato just didn’t know that the brothers hadn’t succeeded until Tazuna returned unharmed.” She watched his expression and saw the sudden sharp look at the mention of that name. Had Kakashi left that part out somehow?  _ Really _ ?

“Of the… Gato Corporation?” The man asked slowly, and Sakura’s stomach fell. Kakashi had  _ definitely  _ left that part out.

“Yes sir. Was that not in the report?” She reached forward to collect her mission debriefing forms to make sure she had them to write her own full report. Perhaps that was supposed to be confidential information.

“Your sensei will be debriefed by a different department, due to his capture of a missing nin on the mission. Please understand that you’ve revealed what is possibly sensitive information, and that it should not be disclosed to the public unless you are given express permission.” The man scribbled several more notes down, so she just nodded. “Please expand upon that.”

“Kakashi insisted on the full story from Tazuna, the client, while we were in the push boat, before we reached dock. He said that what the story was would determine if we ended the mission with landfall.” She watched him writing notes even as she spoke. “Tazuna explained that Gato used his corporation as a front for a variety of illegal activities, including shipping monopoly, racketeering, smuggling, and drug distribution. Later indication from observation and Gato’s comments may also imply minor slave trade. When he moved into Wave, as a shipping magnate he used his boats and money to gain full control of the surrounding waters. Tazuna postulated that the reason Gato was targeting him was because the bridge he was building would promote freer trade with the Fire country, compromising that control.”

“Were these claims founded?” The man looked at her curiously, as if he was surprised not only at her intelligence, but at her input.

“It appeared so, but Kakashi was the one on reconnaissance and neglected to include any of us or inform us of information he’d gathered. All that the three of us saw were the conditions of the town, and the actions surrounding our guard detail on Tazuna.” She frowned. “Should Kakashi have mentioned that in his report?”

“Mostly due to the fact that there would be a hush order on details. Not a lot of genin would know who Gato was, or have focused on that aspect, so early in their careers.” Hayate tapped his pen a bit. “So I emphasise, please refrain from any mention of Gato or his corporation until informed otherwise.”

“Yes, Hayate-san.”

“So Kakashi-san did recon while the three of you…” He prompted.

“After Tazuna made contact with his build team, and Kakashi scouted the work site and travel paths, we were set on a rotating guard. Two with Tazuna, the other guarding his daughter and grandson at their house. Tazuna was the prime target, so while we did attempt training during the guard rotations, we tried to stick to fairly simple things that wouldn’t cause distraction or exhaustion while with him.” She waited a moment for him to scribble notes on that. “At night, in addition to the person on patrol shift, we had our sleeping arrangements set for entry detection. Naruto and I took opposite sides of the door, and Uchiha-san took the window. None of us asked where Kakashi was sleeping, I don’t think.”

“What did you think of the situation?”

“It looked as serious as Tazuna portrayed it to be. He tended to attempt to manipulate sympathy from us on a fairly regular basis, but that didn’t mean he was lying… it was only irritating. Poverty was fairly rampant, as well as illness. There were more beggars than those to beg from.” She moved her hand into her lap before clenching a fist. Gato was dead, and not able to take advantage of people like that again. There was no one left to take justice from. “There wasn’t as much building and land deterioration as would imply long-standing poverty and devastation, so most likely it built exponentially over the time from Gato’s introduction to when we arrived. This is just speculation; I didn’t know anything about the country when we set out.” The man nodded. “Illness and poverty were also out of place. The fishing should have been good there, and some of the better medicinal herbs that I’ve seen grew abundantly in their woods. A formal request for a percentage of the profits from medicinal herb trade should both show us strong enough to not be fooled into cheaper rates as well as promote the start of such trade and cultivation, should the bridge remain intact.”

Hayate smirked slightly to himself, making another note and humming at her noncommittally. “Were there any problems until the battle on the bridge?”

“No.”

“Tell me about that day then.”

She let out a long breath. “It was Naruto’s turn to stay behind with the daughter and grandson, and I went with Uchiha-san to the bridge to guard Tazuna. When we arrived, it already looked as if there had been an attack. All of his workers were either dead or unconscious on the bridge. Before we could insist on a retreat to more fortified ground, a mist rolled in that Uchiha-san determined was a jutsu. He took point while I took guard and stayed with Tazuna.”

“How much of the battle did you see?” She paused, confused. That’s all he wanted to know about it?

“Not a lot at first. Uchiha Sasuke encountered the other ninja while they were out of my area of sight. They came into view a few times before the mist began to clear, but Uchiha-san never called for backup and kept him away from us so I didn’t engage at first. I should have. Somehow the other ninja used the collected moisture from the mist to form reflective mirrors or something similar, in a vague dome around Sasuke-san. He used some fairly powerful Katon against it, but they didn’t evaporate.” She frowned. “I tried to cut through them, too, but it didn’t work. The other ninja was able to jump between reflective sheets, faster than I could even try to track. He favored senbon, and hassled Uchiha-san with them while some of Gato’s swords for hire got there. I was able to take care of them fairly easily, but I couldn’t break through the jutsu to get to my teammate.”

“What was happening with the client at this point?” Hayate eyed her curiously, probably sensing her distress and irritation with the memory of being unable to reach Sasuke within the dome.

“I kept myself between the enemy and the old drunk.” She huffed, clenching a fist again, and he looked surprised. “When he wasn’t working on the bridge, Tazuna drank like a fish to bury his troubles. That’s why I initially didn’t believe his story.” Hayate merely nodded, and gestured for her to continue. “Naruto arrived around then, he’d known something was wrong because swordsmen tried to attack at the house as well, and he came as soon as they were subdued. He was able to use Kagebunshin to help him make his way into the dome, but he didn’t fare any better in there than the Uchiha had alone. His idea was for both of them to rush the outside at the same time, as there was only one of the other nin, but when Uchiha-san saw that Naruto had become the target on their last run, he dove to protect Naruto’s back. Two senbon landed in his neck, and he fell.”

“He fell?” Hayate asked carefully.

“The other ninja was from the Kiri Resistance. His name is Haku.” She leaned forward, fingers woven together as she spoke carefully. “He  _ was _ there, hired by Gato, but with secondary orders. The country of Water, and its village, are potential targets for Gato, and apparently he had shown himself to backstab on deals before. Haku-san said his orders were to take Gato out if he felt that it was in the interest of Kiri and its people.” She swallowed. “The attack on the bridge was to draw Gato out. Haku-san didn’t actually kill any of the bridge crew, nor did he seriously injure either of the boys. The senbon somehow put Uchiha-san into a state of near-death, until they were pulled out later. It left him weakened, but he was fine after rest.” The man was silent, staring at her incredulously. “Haku-san didn’t explain much, but when he pulled the senbon from both of the boys afterward he did say that much to me.”

“Ah.” Hayate was silent for a few moments as he wrote notes. “So Naruto was subdued as well.”

“When he saw the Uchiha fall, he went into some sort of rage. I don’t know that he was fully aware of what he was able to make his chakra do then. I could see it collect in his hands and arms, and in his legs, like a more intense version of tree-climbing… the vertical surface traction method. He attacked the other ninja wildly… and while he did manage to break out of the reflective dome, Haku-san eventually landed senbon in the right spot to knock him out.” She shuddered slightly, remembering the intense, violent chakra that had poured from her friend. “Gato showed up then, with another handful of swords for hire. He made some sort of comment about Haku-sam finally being worth the expense, and then Haku-san killed him. It was some sort of jutsu I didn’t recognize. A Suiton I think. It speared a giant hole through him and several of his men.” She frowned slightly. “It had to be at least B rank.”

Hayate watched her curiously again. “Seeing that didn’t bother you? It does for most new genin.”

“It was a little gruesome, but I expected that we wouldn’t be free to leave Tazuna and Wave unguarded until Gato was dead. I’d simply thought that Kakashi would be the one that had to put him down.” She admitted freely. “Haku-san introduced himself once Gato had been killed, and explained what had all happened. He removed the senbon from one of the unconscious bridge workers as demonstration, and then removed them from my teammates. Tazuna helped me carry the boys back to the village. We found Kakashi-sensei with the bound missing nin at the end of the bridge.”

“What happened with the foreign nin, Haku?” Hayate asked casually.

“We didn’t see him again. Kakashi-sensei stayed, with the other nin bound in capture, long enough to assure that Tazuna and his family would watch over us, and then he left to deliver the missing nin. Naruto was up first, he heals quickly, and formed alternating guard shifts with me until Kakashi-sensei returned. Once Kakashi-sensei came back, and the boys were both well enough to travel, we moved out to return.” She let out a breath. “I assume that the Kiri nin removed his senbon from the other builders, as the village folk indicated the builders were all starting to wake up when they arrived to help clean up the area from the battle.”

“One last question, Sakura-chan.” The man was watching her carefully, and she felt suddenly nervous. “You said that while Sasuke was fighting the other ninja, that swordsmen arrived and you were able to take care of them. I noticed that in all other cases, you mentioned that the enemy was subdued. When you fought, did you kill or seriously injure any of these kenshi?”

“They weren’t kenshi.” She snapped, unable to help it, then sighed and looked away at his curious head tilt. “Swords for hire and kenshi are different, just like kenshi and ronin are different, and ronin aren’t samurai.” He waited patiently, silent. “Yes.” Swallowing back the feeling of nausea, she nodded. “I killed three. Two in combat, and the other was wounded badly enough that without extreme medical jutsu he’d have died. I granted him battlefield mercy.”

“Again, it’s rare for a new genin to know what battlefield mercy means.” He stood, collecting his papers. “If you have trouble with what happened, please either speak with your jounin-sensei or come find me at the tower. I can refer you to some people who may be able to assist.”

“Thank-you, Hayate-san.” She stood as well, forms in hand.

“Once you have things down, please wait for me to finish with Uzumaki Naruto. I’ll take the papers from you when I come back out, and then you may go.” He opened the door, then gestured to the desk that Naruto and Sasuke had been sitting at, filling out their own mission reports. “Uzumaki.”

Sakura nodded, then smiled at the blonde as he moved inside to his own questioning. Hopefully he didn’t get too boisterous. She sat near Sasuke, reaching for a pen and quickly beginning to fill out her forms, ignoring the contemplative stare he gave her. The Uchiha would either eventually learn to trust them, or at least learn to pretend to.

* * *

Naruto fidgeted in his chair as he stared at the jounin that was assigned to debrief the team. He was only vaguely familiar with the man, but he remembered this guy chasing him around the village after one or two of his pranks before he’d graduated. That was probably where the wary look was coming from.

“You can call me Hayate-san, Naruto-kun. While we will officially file your written mission report, it is policy that missions get a personal debrief when they change rank in-field,” the guy said, watching him fidget. “As I told Sakura-chan, it is up to the discretion of a jounin team leader to continue a mission in-field when it shows to be a higher grade, so your team is not in trouble for the mission continuation.”

“Don’t call her chan.” Naruto pouted, folding his arms and glaring at the man. Hayate blinked, surprised. “Call her san, dattebayo.”

“Right. I have the summary of the mission from your jounin-sensei, and have already had my interview with Sakura… san…” he paused, watching as Naruto nodded in satisfaction. “So I will ask questions about certain things, and let you fill in the information from there.” Naruto nodded, bouncing a little impatiently. “Team 7 is listed as genin D-C rank, with the control grade of vertical surface traction… Sakura-san indicated that your team calls it tree-climbing. When did you know that the mission was not C rank?”

“Uh… I think Kakashi-baka said it wouldn’t be a C rank if we had to fight other ninja, so that would be the guys with the claws.” He squinted up at the ceiling. “I don’t remember what time of day it was.” Hayate chuckled lightly. “What?”

“Nothing, Naruto-kun.” The man was still smiling lightly. “I understand you were hurt in that fight?” He looked pointedly at where Naruto still wore his bandage. Sakura had taught him how to wrap it more securely than he used to as a kid, and he always made sure to tighten where it might have loosened when he wasn’t doing something else. Naruto stared at the bandage, clenching a hand around it, and remembering that terrible ‘fight’ and Sasuke’s reactions.

“Yeah…” He was quiet, just staring at the bandage.

“Are you still injured? Does it hurt?” Hayate asked carefully.

“No, Hayate-san.” Naruto mumbled, still staring at the hand.

“How did you get hurt?” He lead finally, after waiting for a few moments.

“One of them was jumping right for me. I put up my hands to protect my face, and Sasuke-teme kicked him away. I think it was just a scratch from one of the claws.” He paused, then glared at the table. “Kakashi said they were poisoned, so I had to bleed the poison out with a kunai.”

“I see.” Hayate waited, and Naruto continued glaring at the table. Scaredy cat.  _ Sasuke _ had called him a  _ scaredy cat _ . He’d even saved his life, when that crazy masked guy had been about to take him out. “Did anything else happen on travel?” Naruto only shook his head, grinding his teeth. “What happened next?”

“The old drunk guy told us about the cake man on the boat, and how he wanted to take over the island and was hurting people.” Naruto huffed, then glared at Hayate, who once again looked amused at what he’d said. “He was doing bad things, and old-man Tazuna’s bridge would help fix that. Kakashi-baka said we couldn’t just leave like that, so we went on shore and helped protect him.”

“How did you do that?” Hayate gestured for him to continue, and Naruto looked up at the ceiling, scratching his head as he leaned back in his chair.

“Eh… Sakura-chan-sensei had us sleep in weird spots around his room. She slept outside of the door, and had me sleep on the other side so it would hit me if anyone opened it. Sasuke-teme slept at the window I think.” He squinted at the ceiling, thinking harder. “Then Kakashi made us rotate guarding the old man and guarding his brat grandkid and daughter. Kakashi-baka was off doin’ something, I think, but he wouldn’t take me with him, dattebayo. Sakura-chan-sensei helped me train when we weren’t on guard.”

Hayate was silent, not asking anything, and Naruto looked down to see what was wrong. The puzzled expression distracted him just enough to where he lost balance, chair crashing to the floor. Scrambling to right himself, he looked curiously at the man. “Why do you keep calling her that?”

“Sakura-chan teaches us stuff. She’s teaching me about storage seals, dattebayo! And Kakashi-baka made her explain chakra when we learned tree-climbing, even though she  _ already _ explained all of that to me when we were studying. Then she told me how it worked once she’d figured it out. She even helped Sasuke-teme learn.” Naruto snorted, folding his arms jealously, a pout on his face. “Bastard didn’t deserve her help.”

“So how did she help you train?” Hayate asked with interest, scribbling something down on his stupid pad.

“She said if I could do a Henge while standing on a tree, it would give me more chakra control, and I could do more stuff that way.” Naruto nodded thoughtfully. “So first she watched to make sure I wasn’t hurting the bark while I tried… and then she made me tie myself to a rope for if I fell while I trained. Dattebayo, I blasted into the leaves the first time and it kept me from flying into the lake!” He rubbed his middle where the rope had dug into his stomach when he first failed to do the trick. “She did different training too, since she couldn’t Bunshin while standing on a tree either. That leaf thing, dattebayo, that they made us do in the Academy. She held it on her forehead all the time while she was training and eating and guarding and everything. I tried it too, when I didn’t have a tree to practice on.” Naruto leaned forward conspiratorially, smirking and whispering. “I saw Sasuke-teme try it at the end too, when he didn’t think I could see him.”

“That’s… certainly interesting training, for such fresh genin.” Hayate offered, still looking surprised, and Naruto smiled broadly, proud. “Very few people learn to use secondary jutsu while chakra-concentrating to walk on odd surfaces within their first year out of the academy. It isn’t a surprise you had trouble.”

“Oh, I figured it out!” Naruto jumped up, running up the wall and quickly forming the seals for a henge. “ _ Henge no jutsu _ !” With a pop of smoke, Naruto beamed down at the jounin, showing a perfect image of Iruka-sensei - his easiest Henge when he wasn’t using the Sexy no Jutsu. Hayate looked shocked, so Naruto released both jutsu, dropping to his feet and perching in the chair again. “See! Sakura-chan-sensei is the best!”

“I see.” The man chuckled again, shaking his head, and made more notes. “So did anything else important happen? What was it like there?”

“The town was really bad… Hayate san…” Naruto said, suddenly subdued, and staring at the table. “I… It was bad. There was this healer… I thought it was a girl but it was a guy… and he had to hand out medicine herbs and spare rice balls and fish because people didn’t have it themselves.” He swallowed, remembering too vividly, and feeling the ghost of Sakura’s hand taking his in comfort when they’d gone in together. “It was bad.” Naruto shook his head. “The healer was actually a ninja, though. I didn’t figure that out until later, dattebayo, but Sakura-chan-sensei might have known. She was real quiet when Haku came by to check on my hand.”

“You met the ninja before he attacked on the bridge?” Hayate asked, surprised, and scribbled something again.

“Yeah. He offered me some herbs for if my hand still needed a stinky salve or something.” Naruto nodded. “Sakura took them to ask Kakashi-baka about them, but I didn’t need them, so she didn’t bring it back.”

“Interesting.” Hayate nodded. “So the day of the attack… what happened?”

“I was late, dattebayo!” Naruto yelled, pounding a fist on the table, scowling. “I woke up late and got ready quickly, because I was supposed to be training and guarding the house. When I went to check on Tsunami-san and the brat, there were two swordsmen there. I’m awesome, so I knocked them both out. They were hassling the brat, so I used the substitution jutsu to switch places with him… and they were so surprised that I was able to knock them out! The brat said that he and Tsunami-san could tie them up for me, so I ran to go help Sakura-chan and Sasuke-teme.”

“What did the bridge look like when you got there?” Hayate shuffled his papers, readying his pen.

“Ah… foggy I think. There was a clear area ahead though, so I ran there. Sakura-chan was fighting some guy with a sword, but Sasuke was trapped in this weird mirrored dome thing. The sword guy was hit to the ground as I got there, so I jumped at the thing coming out of one of the mirror things, and we fought a little before it went back inside. It was a really weird jutsu. I thought I could get Sasuke out if I jumped in… so I did. But then we couldn’t get out and he kept hitting us with these water needle senbon things. He was really fast, too, and we couldn’t hit him back, so we decided to try running in different directions to split his attention and get out. Then Sasuke… he got hurt.”

Naruto was quiet, frowning, as he remembered the damn  _ teme _ sacrificing himself for Naruto’s safety. He’d never expected that, especially from Sasuke. It just didn’t seem like the bastard. Eventually Hayate seemed to get impatient, and cleared his throat.

“Um… I got angry, and… I guess I wanted to protect Sasuke, in case he was still alive, and Sakura-chan, because she was still out there guarding the old man and not able to break through the mirrors. It made me strong, but angrier, and I somehow got through the mirrors. I don’t remember it very clearly.” Naruto focused on his bandaged hand, eyes wide as he tried to remember. Something inside of him, that warm, angry feeling that leaked through his chakra when he was sensing it, the whispy parts, roiled inside of him at the memory, and then settled again. “I think it was… but… and I was about to punch the other ninja. He was wearing a mask, I remember he was wearing a mask and I was gonna punch him. He’d hurt Sasuke. He was gonna hurt Sakura-chan… then the mask broke… and it was Haku. Haku had been giving food and medicine to people in town,  _ helping _ them… it didn’t make sense. Why would he help them, if he was trying to kill the old man? It confused me, and he managed to get me while I was confused.”

“Ah.” Hayate scribbled a few things, letting Naruto settle, and the blonde was grateful. He was still a little confused over how Haku had been both the healer, and the ninja that had nearly killed both he and Sasuke. “So what do you remember next?”

“It’s blurry. Sakura-chan-sensei was struggling to try to carry me… and Tazuna had the teme, he was really groggy and barely able to move… but he was alive!... and… um… something felt weird about my neck. Then there was Kakashi and some green haired guy all tied up… and then I was waking up at Tazuna’s place.” Naruto shook his head. “Dattebayo.”

“Did anything happen while Kakashi was gone?” Naruto just shook his head, frowning as he tried to remember more of the fight. “Was Sakura-san acting weird? Or Sasuke-kun?” Naruto shook his head again. “Okay. Finish filling out your forms, and then make sure that I get them before you go.”

* * *

Hayate looked cautiously at the moody Uchiha in front of him. Sasuke was well known as a bright and promising ninja, but he also knew the kid was as moody as a pregnant woman, and prone to stubborn silences. They had stopped their regular Uchiha-compound guard rounds a couple years ago, but when he’d been doing that, Sasuke had seemed to be developing into a very strong, but very bratty, little ninja.

_ Well… here goes one more time. _

“Sasuke-kun, you can call me Hayate-san. While we will officially file your written mission report, it is policy that missions get a personal debrief when they change rank in-field.” The dark haired kid just stared at him. “As I told the others, it’s up to your jounin-sensei to continue a mission in the field when it turns out to be a higher grade, so your team isn’t in trouble for the mission continuation.” Sasuke still didn’t say anything. “I’ve already interviewed Naruto-kun and Sakura-chan, so I’ll mostly be asking questions about certain things, and letting you fill anything else in. Understood?”

“San.”

“What?” Hayate asked, surprised that the moody kid would say something so similar to Naruto.

“Sakura. Call her san.” Sasuke glared at him. “Chan is insulting.”

“I see. Gomen.” Hayate nodded, holding back a smile that would only set the kid off. “Team 7 is listed as a genin D-C rank, with the control grade of vertical surface traction. When did you know that the mission was not a C rank?”

“When the enemy attacked Kakashi-sensei.” Sasuke offered, and was then silent.

“The Demon Brothers attack?” Hayate tried to clarify, and received only a stoic nod. “How did that fight go?”

“It wasn’t difficult.” Sasuke smirked slightly, but was otherwise not forthcoming.

“Were there any other problems?” Hayate asked, tilting his head as he assessed the Uchiha heir. He almost wished that they had Ibiki in here with this case. With everything else surrounding the Uchiha clan, and with how odd the information around that pinkette girl seemed to accumulate, they could definitely use someone better at reading hidden psychology clues. Sasuke only shook his head in answer to the question. “The other two mentioned the client talking about who was after him on the boat into Wave.”

“Gato. He was probably an eventual risk to the Fire Country, with how he was described, so Kakashi-sensei decided to continue forward.” Sasuke nodded, arms folded loosely as he continued staring petulantly at Hayate.

“I see. What did you do once you reached Wave?”

“When we weren’t guarding the client, I trained.” Sasuke admitted, but didn’t expand on that.

“Were there any problems in town or before the attack on the bridge?” Hayate guided, scribbling down a note that the Uchiha apparently saw the threat, but not the empathy, from the risk that the enemy’s client presented. Sasuke shook his head. “What training did you do?”

“Chakra control.” And Sasuke didn’t expand on that, glaring potently as a threat that he wouldn’t be revealing anything else. Hayate only nodded.

“Okay. So describe the day of the attack.”

“We went to the bridge. When we got to the work site it looked like everyone had been killed.” Sasuke paused there, and Hayate wondered if he was having a flashback to when his own family had been killed en masse. “A mist jutsu was used to reduce visibility, and I moved out on point guard while Sakura guarded the client. The enemy wore a mask and a green short-sleeved haori, and favored senbon. He was very fast. We fought for a while before I had the room and time to try a Katon jutsu to clear away some of the mist. When I did so, he used a strange water jutsu. It looked advanced. It trapped me in a dome of clear mirrors.”

“What was Sakura-san doing?” Hayate asked.

“Garding the client, I guess.” Sasuke answered blankly. “I saw her try to break me out a few times - once with exploding tags - but she moved away, so I’m assuming other enemies attacked.” Hayate nodded. “I wasn’t fast enough to catch the enemy while in the dome. He attacked mostly with senbon and water needle senbon. Naruto showed up at some point, and the idiot came into the dome with me to try to break it from the inside. We weren’t doing well… we were too weak to fight the masked ninja.” Sasuke looked truly angry at that, jaw set as he glared at the wall behind Hayate. It was several moments before he continued. “We tried to run in opposite directions to get out, split his attention. It didn’t work the first few times, but we tried one more time. I saw the enemy going to attack the dobe. I don’t remember anything after that.”

Hayate watched him carefully, trying to decide if Sasuke really didn’t remember trying to save Naruto, or if he was lying. He had a feeling the stubborn boy was lying through his teeth about it, and was tempted to ask why he wouldn’t admit to saving his teammate. In the end, Hayate only nodded. “What’s the next thing you remember?”

“I was in bed at the client’s home. Sakura was sleeping against the wall next to me, and the others were gone. When she woke up, she said that the enemy was gone, and that we were healing before our return. The senbon that had landed in my neck interrupted the nerves, and she said that it would take almost a week for me to be able to move around easily again.” He smirked. “I was walking in four days.”

“When did Kakashi return?” Hayate asked curiously.

“I don’t know. They didn’t tell me he was gone. I found out when we were about to leave again.” Sasuke said with a glare that Hayate translated vaguely as a pout.

“Okay. Please remember that the enemy’s sponsor, Gato, is sensitive information. It should be considered confidential and not be discussed, even with your teammates, until you’ve been told otherwise.” Hayate stood, gesturing to the door. “Once you’ve finished your written report, give it to me and you can go.” Sasuke handed over a sparsely filled out form and strolled away without comment, not even bothering to wave farewell. Sakura was still finishing the last few sections, but Naruto had finished and offered a somewhat messy form before bouncing over to wait for Sakura. What an… interesting… team.


End file.
